


Of Tragedy and Death (Incomplete)

by Golden_Au



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: A lot of Flashbacks, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Child Death, Disturbing Themes, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Finally: A bit of smut, God!Geno, M/M, Mentions of Various Forms of Death, Mentions of miscarriage, Miscarriage in chapter 7, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow To Update, Well...eventual smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-05-15 06:52:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19290481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Au/pseuds/Golden_Au
Summary: This story is Incomplete as a new, ongoing rewrite ('A Tragedy, Revised') has been published.





	1. Enter Stage Left

**Author's Note:**

> Whoooooo boooooooy. TK, if you're reading this: UGH. Why didn't you stop me from making this happen? You're a terrible influencer. Terrible, I say!
> 
> WARNINGS: Abandonment of an infant and discussion of that infants death. No vivid descriptions are given but there are a few descriptive words used. Please take caution if uncomfortable and apologies for the discomfort!

Twice, he was born.

First, he was born a babe.

Second, he was born as something other. Something more.

Both times, his birth saw him bathed in the blood of those who loved him.

Both times, his birth was followed by his cries.

Both times, he was named.

First, they called him Sans and that was who he was.

Second, they called him Genocide and that was but a name, for what he truly was, was not a name, but a title. A concept turned into a man no longer a man, but a god. He was called Genocide, yes, but he was not genocide alone. He was murder. He was war. He was a beloved wife’s death and the wail that would never come from a child that would never breathe.

He was Tragedy.

And for that, he was shunned.

* * *

 

Although a shadowed hood and mask of porcelain hid his face, he found that he could not help but avert his gaze as he hurried through the bustling markets of the Lower Realm. Those around him knew not of what he was, yet they parted for him all the same, subconsciously unnerved by the deep sorrow that trailed after him like a hopeless, smitten fool follows his love. Ashamed of the discomfort he brought, he pushed himself to move faster as he sought his destination, though even he was unaware of what that destination was and knew only that he dreaded it.

What was it this time, he wondered. A jealous lover? An unfortunate accident? Ill at what he may find, he nearly slowed his steps until a child rushing after her friends brushed his side and fell; bursting into tears upon skidding her knee. Head bowed, he hurried again. It was neither fair nor kind to the mortals for him to linger.

Mercifully, his blind searching led him away from the busy markets and through a series of interconnecting alleys built like a maze. Dark and dreary, they brought a sense of unease to him as he hesitantly explored their complex paths until, finally, he stopped.

“Here.” He whispered, voice echoing in the still silence around him. “It happens here.”

Stepping back into the shadows of a tattered overhang, he waited.

He did not wait long.

Sorrow etched into every exhausted line of her face, a woman walked into the alley he hid in. Eyes red but resolute and head held high despite her trembling, she marched into the darkness with a bundle of black cloth held in her arms. How daring of her to choose such a bold color and a busy time of a day. 

Stomach twisting in knots, he watched silently as she approached a large pile of filth and trash and begged to feel nothing as she so carelessly dropped her burden among the piles. Lips pressed in a stern line, she spared the cloth a single glance before spinning on her heel and darting away as if she were attempting to outrun her sins. When her footsteps no longer echoed in the alley, he stepped out from the shadows and slowly made his way to the trash where he bent to unravel the cloth.

Instantly, nausea churned his stomach and he hurried to conceal the secret he bore witness to.

“Let’s get you buried, little one.” He murmured, voice wet. “An alley is no place for a child.”

Before his outstretched arms could reach the poor soul, a chill shot down his spine and he ran to hide once more.

Someone was coming, it seemed.

Someone he didn’t want to see.

Back pressed against the cold, dirty building behind him and breath halted in an attempt to remain undetected, he bit his tongue nervously as one of the eldest of the concepts appeared from the nothingness. Dressed in black robes darker than darkness itself and sporting a smile lacking warmth, Death himself stood in the filth of the alleyway with his wicked scythe of metal and bone held in an unwavering hand. He both envied and hated the other for the calmness he showcased as the god stepped up to the child so carelessly thrown away with no sign of mortification. Death did not hesitant nor did he falter as he swung his blade and reaped the innocent soul left behind in the corpse of the infant. Instead, he ensured the soul was gathered and his work was complete before simply vanishing as if something terrible had not taken place. 

There and gone, just like that.

Releasing a shaky breath and pressing a hand against his pounding chest, he allowed himself a few moments to calm before returning to the little bundle’s side. Gently, he cradled the cold, still form in his arms and ensured they were safe as he, too, vanished; leaving only an empty alleyway behind.

* * *

 

“Did you hear? Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Rumors say that he took another prize.”

“He? Which he? Him or  _ him _ ?”

“Him!”

_ “Him?” _

“No, not _ him. _ Him!”

“Oh! You mean him!”

“Yes, yes! Him! They say he returned from the Lower Realm with yet another trophy of his terrible deeds. A child, they say. Oh, but not just a child. No, he returned with a mere babe! Dead and cold and perfect for his terrible collection.”

“Disgusting!”

“Yes, disgusting! Truly horrid, that creature is.”

“Why does our king allow such acts? Should he not put a stop to such cruelty? Bodies as trophies? As cruel prizes for crueler deeds? It’s horrible! Horrible, I say!”

“No one knows! King Asgore—wait.  _ He’s  _ coming! Quick! Act natural!” 

It was quite a shame that his sockets were void of the eye lights usually so common for his kind and that the two gossiping maids he passed were unable to tell he was rolling his eyes at them. Running their mouths on the job? About another god no less? Honestly, how was it that Asgore somehow always managed to find the time to scold him for fooling around instead of working when his own castle staff apparently slacked off just as much as he did? Huffing a bit in annoyance, he decided that he would just have to question the king about the unfairness of it all after today’s lecture. Maybe, just maybe, the questioning would be enough to distract Asgore from the fact that he left his duties early today.

Heh, that was unlikely. He had absolutely terrible luck when it came to avoiding work unnoticed.

Could he be blamed for choosing to escape his duties as often as he did, though? So many called him cold hearted. Unfeeling, the other deities enjoyed saying. Everyone thought him cold and cruel simply for who and what he was but neither of those things were true. Death felt. He knew sorrow and pain and terror. He experienced them often, in fact.

_ At first, he nearly missed it. Swaddled in black and camouflaged by the shadows of the alleyway, the soul he came to reap was difficult to see. Had it not been for the fact that the soul itself was a physical, bright thing in his eyes, he may not have seen the small, hidden form attached to it. Truthfully, he wished he hadn't seen it. The bundle was too small and the soul too pure to be anything more than a child. An infant, he knew. Barley a day into this world but already gone from it. _

_ Already in his grasp. _

_ Expression a mask of indifference but heart full of turmoil, he swung his great, terrible scythe at the small thing. Instantly, the light of the soul vanished, taking a bit of his good conscience with it. _

_ Unable to look at the little form left behind, he disappeared. _

Only his many years of practice kept his insincere smile on his face as the events from earlier that morning flashed before his eyes. Death dealt with many terrible things but the reaping of a child was always such a great burden to bear. Although he performed his duties and took the infant’s soul from it’s silent corpse, he took no pleasure in the act like so many assumed he did. A child’s death brought him no joy and, sickened, he found himself unable to continue onto the next soul that called to him.

Unfortunately, Asgore noticed.

Mood foul from the brief memory and soured further by the knowledge he was being called to the king to be scolded, Death purposely slowed his place as he turned a corner and leaned back against a wall. Asgore could wait, he thought as he crossed his arms and closed his eyes in an attempt at capturing a brief moment of peace. If the king insisted at constantly lecturing him like a parent would a disobeying child, then he would give him a better reason to do so. Make him wait. Increase his ire. Death was no longer in the mood to be complacent. Out of sight as he was; however, he heard as the two maids began their yammering once again, both so sure he was gone and their chatting remained private.

“Did you see  _ his  _ expression? That chilling smile? Stars, I fear for my life whenever the king calls  _ him  _ here!”

“Could you imagine if  _ he  _ ever met him? Stars, it frightens me to think of the misfortune they’d bring to our land!”

_ “Death  _ and Tragedy meeting? Oh, please don’t fill my head with such a terrifying possibility!”

‘Tragedy?’ he thought, the name rousing some interest. ‘Is that who they were speaking of before I passed?’

Tragedy was another god, he knew, yet that was where his knowledge of the other both began and ended. As feared as being Death made him, he had little to no interaction with the deities of the realm outside of the small handful he knew. The king, Life, Knowledge and War were really the only god and goddesses he spoke to outside his brother and even then it was never all that frequent with how demanding his duties were. This Tragedy was an unknown but he found himself curious all the same, especially since the maids seemed to fear the other enough to drag his own name into things.  

“How terrible those two would be. I fear that they’d meet and a horror too terrible to imagine would be born.”

“It frightens me how clearly I can see it. The havoc they’d wreak…”

“I wonder if Death knows that Tragedy claims his victims as trophies. I fear he’d gift him more were they to meet.”

“I know that tone! I know that look, too! You think the two would…?”

“It terrifies me but yes! Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes! Can you not see it? How their very cores compliment each other so well? Both so cruel. Both so, so cold.”

“Death and Tragedy are so often intertwined...”

“Yes, yes! Exactly! Is it not likely that they...that they…”

“No! No! Impossible!”

“You think?”

“I hope! A meeting between the two terrifies me enough! I dare not think of  _ that!”  _

Confused, Death frowned. What in the world were those two talking about? Terror and havoc? Victims as trophies? He and this Tragedy complementing one another?  _ Intertwined?  _ Did the maids expect them to unleash hell upon the realm together or for them to roll around in bed? It was a little worrying that he was unable to tell. 

The desire to stick around and listen further was strong but he could see the skies darkening. Not with night; however, but with Asgore’s growing ire. Ah, seems like he was making the king wait a little too long.

Understanding that pushing further would do him no good, he left the hall with the gossiping maids behind in favor of teleporting himself straight into the throne room where Asgore awaited. Nodding his head respectfully with a smile that claimed he could do no wrong, he let his legs cross and his power seat himself in the air as he readied for what was sure to be a terribly long lecture.

“Death.” Asgore greeted with a frown and disappointed tone. “You’re late.”

“Forgive me, my king. My duties were keeping me busy.”

The other god did not look impressed. “Your duties? The ones you left unfinished hours ago?”

“Yes.” He confirmed with a wider smile. “I was terribly busy avoiding them.”

“Death….”

The following scolding was nothing new. Asgore demanded he stop his slacking, Death requested a scheduled weekly day off, the king denied him, and the two went in circles full of lecturing and arguments until the ruler decided that enough was enough and ended his lecture for the day with a warning that he would punish Death if his poor behavior continued.

It was the same warning he gave every time.

Pretending to be cowed, Death silently tipped his head in acknowledgement before rising from his seated position; more than ready to leave. Only, for once, he hesitated.

Noticing this, Asgore frowned; confused. “Our business is done for the day, Death. You may leave.”

“A question first, if I may?”

“Go on.”

He couldn’t say what made him ask. The lingering confusion of the maids’ words? The interest he still held? Whatever the reason, the question nagged at him until he spoke it. 

“Where exactly would I find the god who goes by Tragedy?”

Little did he know what asking that question would bring.


	2. At Last, We Meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death and Tragedy meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Possible disturbing themes. Mostly just a few lines involving child death and the abuse of corpses.

_He wanders._

_At first, he believes his journey holds no destination, no purpose beyond escaping the memories he left behind as streaks of red and empty graves; yet, as time passes, he realizes his folly. He holds no map and ignores the guidance of the stars, but there is a path he travels that he does not know he follows until he finds himself on the edges of civilization. A village. Tormented by the echoes of laughter he hears, he turns away and leaves; pathless once more._

_He is led back._

_He leaves._

_Again, he returns._

_No matter which way he turns or how far he desperately runs, he finds himself back at the village, each return made more urgently as a call he doesn’t quite hear so much as feels beckons him closer. There’s something here for him, he knows. That knowing confuses him. Terrifies him, even. Once more, he decides. He’ll try once more. With that in mind, he spins on aching feet and attempts to escape the village._

_He attempts to escape fate._

_He fails._

A chill heralds the presence outside his door well before a series of ominous knocks announces the arrival of a guest. Instinctively, gloved fingers tightened their grip around the edges of His Story before he forces himself to relax. Another prank, he tells himself, ignoring the trembling of his hands as he closes the thick, dusty book he had been inspecting but now sets aside; mood soured. Another few knocks have his shoulders hunching, his body curling forward defensively as he lies to himself that it is not bone he hears scraping against the wood with each knock.

Moments pass without an answer yet his guest fails to tire of his waiting and continues to knock and wait and knock and wait and knock and wait until, finally, he accepts that silence will not send them away. 

Shakily, he rises from his soft, plush chair and dons his mask. The anonymity calms him just enough that his trembling eases, leaving only his tense posture to hint at the discomfort he feels upon unlatching his lock and finding Death at his door.

Literally.

For a moment, Death blinks at the air before him. Then, his head tilts downwards as he readjusts for the height difference he did not expect. “Tragedy, I presume?”

“...Yes, my lord.” He confirms.

Surprisingly, the elder deity’s expression twists. Distaste? No, discomfort. “Ah, Death is fine.”

“My apologies, Death.” At the silence that follows his words, he shifts; uncertain of himself and the interaction he’s having. “May I ask what purpose you have for joining me this,” the sky is starry, “night?”

“You may.” Death allows, though he fails to answer the inquiry. The taller’s unseemly smile twitches at the corners and, embarrassingly, he realizes the joke long after the appropriate time to react has passed. “Ah, seems like my funny bone isn’t very humerus tonight.”

It’s useless to hide his mouth when his mask conceals it.

Still, he brings a hand up, startled at the sound he let slip.

_“Pfft!”_

* * *

 

There is something about the figure before him that he finds compelling, though he would be unable to explain just what that something was. A mystery stands before him, he thinks, and wonders if that is what draws his interest, examining the deity that tolerates his company despite how clearly Death sees the smaller dreads it. The smaller is tense, wound up tightly like one of those unnerving mortal boxes you crank until it’s ready to burst with a frightening surprise, or, in the case of the god, ready to faint with nerves.

He attempts to ease the other with a joke, yet it falls flat, possibly even comes off as rude. 

Smile still in place, he is quick to try another, hopeful, though he knows there is little hope in the success of his scheme. 

Apparently, he knew nothing, for the deity laughs.

Similar to Tragedy himself, the laugh is a slight thing; small. It pushes pass lips he cannot see as more of a stuttering exhale than a chuckle that seems to surprise the smaller deity more than it does him. Bemusedly, he watches as the other god raises a hand to the faux, grimacing mouth of his mask and wonders at what the tortured expression set into porcelain hides. 

“I don’t suppose you wish to invite me in?” He questions boldly, curious to see how the smaller would react. 

Hands concealed by gloves curled into fists at the other god’s side. Aggression seemed unlikely, as did anger. Nervousness, then. Or fear. “...The hour is late, Death.”

“We require no rest.”

“And we are not companions!” Tragedy snaps before covering his wide, sculpted mouth again. “...We do not speak, Death. I don’t quite understand why you seem to wish to do so now.”

“Curiosity.” There was no shame in his admission. “I heard some rather interesting rumors today that brought to attention the fact that we’ve never met.”

Instantly, the air around the smaller thickened with misery. “...I see.”

It was a little cruel, but he found himself pushing the subject further, smile sharp as the power he sensed swirling around the other put him on edge. “Apparently, you keep bodies as...trophies, I think it was?”

“There’s little truth to be found in gossip, Death.”

“Ah, but little truth isn’t _no_ truth, is it, Tragedy?”

For a moment, the other, smaller god is quiet. When he speaks, his words come slow and dull, as if the joy bled from his voice until only sorrow remained. “Don’t you know?” Tragedy begins, “I’m a terribly cruel creature, Death. I spread horror and misery throughout the realms and claim the bodies I leave in my wake as prizes for my disgusting deeds. Children are my favorite, you know? I nail their corpses to my walls and adorn myself with their nails and teeth. I drink their blood and devour their flesh. I turn their bones to broth, too. Oh, but all of that comes after I dance around their bodies under the moon to renew my power, of course.”

Although the words are terrible, disgusting things, Death grins. Behind the flat tone there lies no truth. Tragedy is quoting. “Do you dance in the nude?”

“Only when I bathe myself in their blood to absorb their strength.”

“I see.” he chuckles, though he knows he really shouldn’t find humor in such morbid claims. 

“Has your curiosity been settled, then?”

“Hmm, I suppose it has…” Just as Tragedy seems to relax, he continues, “...not.”

“Wha-”

“There’s something about you...” Death cuts in, slowly leaning forward to peer through the solid, painted eyes of the mask he cannot see beyond. Although the older, taller god is well versed in keeping his deathly hands to himself, Tragedy still freezes; afraid of the risk the closeness brings, no doubt. “...that draws my interest. It’s not the mask,” he murmured, the words meant mostly for himself as his gaze left the porcelain to observe the other’s clothes, “nor is it the clothing…”

“T-the rumors, perhaps?”

The stutter in the other’s words makes him wonder if the nervousness that causes it is reflected on the smaller’s face. “Hm, not quite. I’ll admit that they led me here, but,” Sockets narrowing, he leaned in closer with a look of contemplation, “there’s something else. Ah,” Realization spreads across his face, “I know what it is.”

“W-what?”

Death grins. “Your laughter.”

Sputtering, the smaller deity stumbled back. “I...p-pardon?!”

“You laughed at my joke.” He informs the other god, smile stretching wide at the disbelief in the smaller’s voice, “I came here expecting some great monstrosity of a god, you know? Instead, I find myself in the presence of a deity shorter than even I—”

“T-that’s not-”

“—who laughed at my terrible humor. Somehow,” there’s an urge to get closer, so he follows the other’s retreating steps backwards into the house. “I can’t help thinking that there is more to you than the monster the rumors I heard made you out to be.”

“I...I-ah!”

Pausing in front of the armchair the smaller deity stumbled into and fell back across, he chuckles. “I think,” feet lifting from the floor, he leans in impossibly close; hovering over the fallen form of the god with an unnerving smile, “that I would rather enjoy getting to know you, Tragedy.”

“Y-you-”

“I’ll come back tomorrow.” He decides. “For now, I’ll leave you to all that blood bathing and moon dancing you mentioned. Is noon fine?”

“I-”

“Excellent. Until then, Tragedy.”

“Death—”

Smiling, he vanishes.

* * *

 

_No one will meet his gaze, he notices._

_Shoulders hunched under the weight of his sorrow, he walks through the village he could not escape and finds it strange how none of them look; how none of them stare. He’s a startling sight, he knows, yet not one eyes the mess that became of his socket or the blood that soils his chest. Instead, they avoid gazing upon him entirely and part for him as he moves straight through the large, bustling crowd. Relief wars with loneliness. He has little desire to speak, yet the distance the villagers keep remind him that no longer does another walk at his side. No longer is there company for him to keep._

_Swallowed by the ever growing darkness of his thoughts, he fails to notice the twist and turns he distractedly takes. Down an alley, up stone steps, across an emptier street…. He moves with a purpose he has yet to realize until he stops._

_Here, he thinks._

_What is here, he wonders next, puzzled by the strange sureness that this is where he must be._

_Suddenly, there is dread._

_A flicker of black at the corner of his eye catches his attention and, nervously, he turns._

_A skeleton looms behind a bickering couple._

_He wears black._

_He carries a scythe._

_And he’s staring._

_At. Him._

_The skeleton smiles._

_The dread within him grows._

Centuries later, that same smile fills him with the same sense of dread.

Still lounging clumsily across his chair, he presses a trembling hand to his chest and feels the way his SOUL pounds beneath the fragile ribs he drapes in crimson flowing robes. His hand will come away wet and red but ignores that fact as he stares at the spot Death just stood, chilled by both the promise of another visit and the breeze that flows through his open door. 

_“You laughed at my joke.”_ Death said, voice factual.

_“You...you laughed at my joke!”_ His memory echoes, the voice filled with wonder.

“I don’t want to see you.” Tragedy whispers, though he knows it is far too late for the other god to hear his words. Magic flashes in his hidden socket and the door slams shut, the lock falling in place as if that would stop the next morning from arriving. “I don’t want to see you again.”

But he knew better than to hope the other would not show.

After all, 

Death always did have a habit of following him around.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww, I'm so excited to see that quite a few of you are interested in seeing god! Geno play out! I have no clue where this story is going so let's all go on this journey together!


	3. At Last, We Meet...Again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death and Tragedy have lunch! ...Kind of. Not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for: Mentions of death including murder, assault, and suicide. Sex is also mentioned but nothing too graphic is shown.

_He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He walks and walks and walks until he finds death but he doesn’t know_ why _. He just...does it. He seeks it, like a starved man seeks a method of ending his hunger. Murders, suicides, terrible accidents, failed births…. The list goes on, each event worse than the last but never enough to settle the urge within him._

_He wants to stop. He begs himself to but his own feet betray him, always leading him away to the next horrific scene._

_“Help me,” he begins to beg, “someone please help me. I...I can’t stop. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”_

_No one listens. No one even seems to hear._

_Until, one day, someone does._

_“Are you okay?”_

“No,” he murmurs to his memories, “I’m not okay, you ass.”

He’s not okay at all.

How do you go about preparing lunch for the one person in the entire world you would rather die than see? Ironic considering that person is Death, yeah, but his point still stands: He doesn’t want to see him. At all. 

Unfortunately, he never gets what he wants.

_“I know that look. What has you down today, sunshine?”_

“No,” He isn’t doing this. He _won’t,_ “shoo. Go away, you stupid, stupid memories.”

_“Heh, you’re especially cranky today.”_

“Go away!”

_“C’mon, sunshine. Don’t push me away. I missed you.”_

_He can’t quite turn his head fast enough to hide his flustered smile. “Idiot.”_

_The rude name earns him a grin. “Y’know, most people call the person they like something nicer. Idiot, asshole, bastard...I’m starting to think you don’t love me~”_

_“Shut up,” he grumbles, “of course I love you...idiot.”_

Tears burn at his eyes. It’s childish, but he hides his face with his hands with the misguided hope that covering the tears would make them disappear. Surprise, surprise, it fails to end his misery, “Stop it, stop it, _stop it!”_

_“Love you too, sunshine.”_

“I said _stop!”_ He shouts, slamming His Story shut as if doing so would silence the memories it contains. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want your...your fucking _lies!_ Just get out of my head! Get out of my _life!”_

_“I’ll come back tomorrow.” Death said._

_“...Stay_ out of my life.” He whispers, though, as always, no one is there to hear, “You made it clear you wanted no place in it.”

_“Is noon fine?” Death asked._

“...No. No, it’s not.” 

He glances at the clock.

Forty three minutes until noon. 

He sighs, “...I wonder if you still like coffee…?”

* * *

 

Death is always on time, though most never truly know when to expect him.

 _Death,_ on the other hand….

Pacing the length of his modest living room, he scowls. Noon arrived _two_ hours ago and his dread has long since bubbled over into annoyance. He made food for this! Food! 

Just before he collides with the bookshelf lined wall, he spins on his heel and begins the march to the other side of the room; red robes flaring up behind him dramatically like the flames that fuel his rage. “Idiot,” he really should have known, “of course he’s late. That bastard can’t meet a deadline to save his ass. Why would I expect him to be on time for lunch?” Despite his best attempts at resisting, he cracks a grin. “Heh, _dead_ line.”

“Good one.”

At once, what little humor he feels drains. “Lord Death,” he greets through gritted teeth, body tense with the effort not to release his surprise at the sudden appearance as a loud, embarrassing shriek, “I’m afraid I don’t recall allowing you inside my home. Or agreeing to meet at,” a glance at the clock, _“two seventeen_ in the afternoon.”

Shameless in the face of his trespassing and tardiness, the god smirks, though it’s far more crooked than a genuine one would be. “Death,” the elder god corrects, “As I said last evening, just Death will do. There’s no need for this ‘Lord’ nonsense.”

“I see. No plans to address either of the things I mentioned?”

“Not really.”

He hates him. He really, truly hates him. When his hands tremble and nausea makes him feel ill, he tells himself it’s the anger he feels. The hatred. “Well, I suppose neither of those things matter, in the end. You have arrived and are here _now.”_

“Oh?” Interest. It makes him shiver. “You feel no ire towards me for my misdeeds? No desire to scold me?”

“...What I feel and what I desire is of no concern to you, Death.” They’re lingering in his favorite room, standing like fools and tainting the one place he feels at peace with what is sure to become a distasteful memory. He wants Death out of here. His home preferably, but, at the very least, out of his living room will do. “I’ve made lunch, though I’m afraid it’s been sitting for quite a bit by now.”

Still no shame. Just more of that chilling interest. “You eat?” Death questions, following his path as the younger god turns and walks through a set of doors. There is surprise on the elder’s face when he sees that the doors lead them not into a dining room or kitchen like he most likely expected, but instead into a library. “You read?”

“Yes,” his voice comes out flatter than he meant; impolite, “to both questions.”

His library isn’t very grand, he knows. In all honesty, the room was meant to house guest originally. A fool’s dream. Rather than leave it to collect dust in wait of those who would never come, he added shelves and began filling it with his stories. Eventually, he ran out of shelves and now books line nearly every available surface in the room save two plush chairs and a small table placed between them. Currently, the table held an array of food and drinks; their late lunch. 

“Ah, that last question does seem to have an obvious answer.” Chuckling, the black clad god takes a seat on one of the chairs, expression curious as he peers at the spread before him. “I freely admit to being surprised that you eat. Not many of our kind bother with such mortal desires like food.”

“Food is hardly a mortal _desire,_ Death. Unlike the deities of this realm, mortals require food for survival. Surely _you_ of all gods know that considering the many lives starvation takes. How many it _kills._ ” Burning magic threatens to spew from his teeth. Discreetly, he swallows it and finds himself thankful for the mask he wears that disguises the way he averts his eye to hide from the ice in the other’s smile. “Forgive me,” he murmurs, “that was...rather rude of me.”

“...And truthful, too.” There’s no warmth in those twin voids. “Many fall by my hand from starvation. And thirst. And a lack of medicine, too. Since we’re on the topic of my work, let’s not forget to include murder, assault, suicide…. I assure you there’s much more left to add. Shall I go on? Or are _you_ perhaps just as well acquainted as I am with my dealings, _Tragedy?”_

_A woman runs, screaming. No one is around to help and she falls to the blade of the man who chases her. Red paints the empty streets that night, illuminated by the moon in the sky and later washed away by morning rain._

_He sits by the body until it’s found._

_A monster walks across the street towards a destination only he knows. There’s quite a bit of humans around but he doesn’t seem nervous. Not until he passes a group of three that stare and sneer. When they push themselves from the wall they lean against, he picks up speed. So do they. Everyone looks away when the monster is chased. No one listens to his pleas as he is beat._

_When the monster lies dying, he cannot see the one who attempts to comfort him._

_A young man weeps as he stands high above a roaring ocean, the waves below wild and loud as they crash against the rocky structure he climbed in his grief. In one hand a bottle is clenched, nearly empty, and in the other a picture is held, wrinkled with use and stained with tears. He doesn’t get to see what the photo is of until the man jumps, the wind from his fall tearing the picture from his grasp and blowing it within reach of the witness. It’s of a wife and a child._

_A death day is written on the back._

Again, he swallows the magic that wishes to soil his mask. “...I am.” His voice comes out quiet. Regretful, you could say. He didn’t mean to let his temper run free. “I understand your work quite well, Death.” 

“Death and Tragedy _are_ often intertwined...”

 _Hands intertwined, they moan in unison as they become one._ _There is pain from the length that invades him but there is pleasure too and w_ _hen his lover withdraws in a slow, hot drag against his walls, he whimpers; dismayed._   _He wants him inside, the discomfort be damned!_ _When his lover returns with a quick, sharp motion of his hips, he cries out; pleased._ _Yes, he thinks. Yes, yes, yes! Just like that._

_Soon enough, they fall into a pattern. A carnal dance full of rocking that pushes them closer and closer to completion._

_By the time their dance ends, they are tired. Sated._  
  
_Their hands remain intertwined._

“...Pardon?” He squeaks, for that is really all he can call the sound he makes.

Death’s stare and smile are still frigid, but less so after his high pitched response. Now, there’s amusement in that unsettling gaze. “It’s something I overheard from a pair of gossiping maids. Death and Tragedy are often intertwined, one said”

_Spent, they lie together under the midnight sky; his head on his lover’s arm and their legs lazily tangled together in a mess of bones. All that hides them from the judging eyes of the stars is the robe draped across their forms, the fabric the same shade of black as the stretch of sky above them._

“I,” this time, his voice is a dry, cracking rasp. He scans the table for the pitcher he knows he set out, “I suppose there’s some truth to that.”

“You think?” Death questions, idly watching as he fills a glass with water that has gone a little warm. When the cup is raised to the mouth of his mask, the older god seems both disappointed and intrigued to find the porcelain enchanted, the water passing through easily. “Why is it that you wear such a strange mask?”

He doesn’t want to answer that. “Would you like coffee?”

“Oh,” There’s genuineness in the taller’s smile now, “yes. Coffee would be excellent.”

He doesn’t bother asking if Death minds that it is cold. Instead, he finds the small pot and begins to pour it into the empty mug on the table. The only mug on the table, actually.

“...I have to admit that I still don’t quite understand your reasons for being here, Death.” Three cubes of sugar and just enough milk to lighten the color of the coffee. “You said you believe you’d enjoy getting to know me but,” a dash of cinnamon then he pushes the mug over, “that seems kind of pointless considering-”

He froze.

Across from him, Death did the same, his sockets on the mug of coffee he held. “Tragedy, you-”

“I have to go.” He interrupted, pushing his seat back as he stood from it. “My apologies Death, but—”

“Tragedy, wai-”

“—my... _work_ calls to me. I’m sure you can see yourself out.”

“Tragedy, _wait!”_

“I _can’t!”_ He snaps back, “I have to leave _now_ , Reaper! _Goodbye!”_

He’s gone the moment he finishes speaking.

* * *

 

_When he awakes, he’s cold._

_At first, this bothers him. Then, he smells the familiar scent of coffee and hears the light sound of bone tapping against the floor._

_The bedroom door opens._

_“Oh,” for a moment, his lover blinks at him; two mugs held in his hands, “you’re awake?”_

_He smiles, “No, I’m asleep. I’m sleep walking.”_

_“Asshole.” His lover snorts. “Here," handing one of the mugs over, the smaller skeleton carefully climbs back into bed and cuddles close; his own mug held near his stained chest, “Sweet and cinnamony and just how you like it, you complex ass.”_

_“Thanks, sunshine.” He murmurs, pressing a kiss to his lover’s head._

_The smaller skeleton smiles, “You’re welcome—”_

“Reaper.” Death murmurs, staring into the perfect cup of coffee he holds with haunted eyes, “You always use to call me Reaper, sunshine.”

Slowly, he raises his gaze to the empty chair across from him.

“Just how, exactly, does Tragedy know that name?”

Somehow, he already knows the answer.

For now; however, it’ll have to wait.

Work was calling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Death isn't stupid~ he knows how to piece 2 and 2 together to get 5. 
> 
> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> Wait, 2 and 2 doesn't equal five... Huh, let's hope Death is smarter than that or else he'll NEVER get himself a boyfriend.


	4. Paths Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A terrible event and an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter continues right from the end of the last chapter! Also, HEED THE WARNINGS. 
> 
> WARNINGS: Death of an infant as well as mentions of terrible things. Feel free to skip if you're uncomfortable.

_He is afraid._

_He is afraid of the way he slowly loses his fear in the face of such unforgivable acts as abuse, murder, suicide, and so many more terrible, horrifying things that may not end in death, but leave behind scars that the mind cannot heal._

_Men, women, and children alike scream and cry and beg for mercy from their murderers, their abusers, their rapist, and, often—too often—their friends and family; yet his heart no longer throbs with sympathy at the sounds. He no longer feels empathy for those living the moment he himself once lived. He no longer cares._

_And it makes him afraid._

_“I’ve experienced all the pain and suffering the world has to offer.” He tells the stars one night, drunk off of sorrow. And a bottle of wine. “Jealous rages, disgusting lust, deep sadness...I’ve experienced it all and it has made me cruel and cold. Numb! It has made me numb! There is nothing more this world has to offer that could drag a tear from me. You hear me? There is nothing left to mourn greater than I mourn this foul, dead heart of mine! Nothing!”_

_He is afraid._

_In his drunken state; however, he is bold._

_And he is_ wrong _._

As he exits the void he his travels between realms so often takes him, he finds himself standing in a— 

His heart clenches.

He is well, well aware of what a nursery looks like.

“No,” he gasps. Begs, in all honesty as he thinks of the scarf he wears and the precious ones it has wrapped. “Please, stars, please, please not another one. Not so soon after the last. _Please.”_

As always, the stars hidden by the daylight sky ignore his pleas.

He knows better than to beg the gods. His faith in them was lost long before he joined their ranks.

Fingers tracing the polished wood of the crib that sits before him, he closes his eye and bows his head in remorse for what he brings. “I am sorry.” No words are ever truly enough to earn the forgiveness of those he wrongs, he knows. Nothing can be said to ease the pain he so cruelly gifts. “I am so, so sorry.”

Footsteps. 

He cannot be seen but he hides anyways, silent and ashamed as he watches the shiny golden knob turn. 

The door slams open and he jumps, startled by the sudden loud noise and the even louder crying that nearly disguises the _bang_ of wood meeting wall. He expected gentleness. A slow, quiet easing into the room.

Instead, a woman storms in with a wailing infant in her arms.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She screeches, the sharp pitch of her voice ugly whereas the woman herself is beautiful. Tired and worn, yes, but beautiful all the same in a lovely dress and red painted lips to match her ginger hair. “You’ve been crying all fucking night and all fucking morning and now you’ve been crying _all fucking day!_ Just shut up! Shut up already, damnit! Shut up!”

Red faced, the infant screams their distress into their mother’s face. 

She screams back louder. “I hate you!”

Humans have always inspired such unpleasant emotions within him. Fear, anger, disgust… Watching the mother scream and scream and scream at her poor frightened child brings forth all of those feelings now. “Leave them alone…”

“I wish I never had you, damnit! I wish-!” The woman falls silent, eyes manic as she looks upon the teary face of her child. “...I wish you were _dead.”_

He tenses at the chill that goes through him. _‘On time for_ this, _I see.’_

“If you were dead…” Unaware of what guest she hosts, the woman growls, “...then _you’d finally shut up!”_

Young children are such fragile little creatures, infants more so.

All it took was three shakes.

“I!”

_Shake._

“Hate!”

_Shake._

“You!”

Death swings his scythe.

_S n a p._

The crying stops.

* * *

 

“Oh thank _god.”_

He doesn’t flinch, though the desire to do so is great. Thank god, the mother said as she dropped the too small corpse in their crib _,_ relieved at the silence that now fills the room. Thank god, the woman said with a _smile._ Thank god, she said, unaware of the disgust it fills the _god_ that stands before her with. 

He is not touched. He is not pleased.

He does not want her thanks. 

Not for something as horrid as this.

When the woman leaves, Death stays. There are many, many calls he has yet to answer but his business here has not come to an end, even if his work has.

“Does my work frighten you? He questions, “Or was our incomplete lunch simply so terrible that you feel the need to hide yourself from me, Tragedy?”

“I do not hide from death.”

“But do you fear it?” He questions.

_“Are...are you afraid of me?” he questioned once._

“I do not hide from death,” Tragedy repeats, stepping out from his poor hiding spot and closer to where the unfortunate child sleeps forever, “nor do I fear it. There is little point in being frightened by that of which you know well. Your work is no stranger to me.”

_“People fear what they do not know,” his love once said, “but I have known death for many years and Death for many more. You don’t scare me, Reaper.”_

 Similar, but not the same. His heart constricts in pain even as it races with the possibility that still remains. “My work is familiar to you?” _Not I?_

“Was it not you who spoke of us intertwined?” Tragedy responds, the tone flat yet the words too vague to provide the answer Death seeks. “There is truth there, Death. The evidence of it rests before your very eyes.”

Various questions still themselves on his tongue. The smaller god is closer now, kept away only by the crib that separates them like a river splits the land in two. Although it is Death he speaks to, the other deity’s head is angled, the eyes of the mask peering into the crib with its anguished expression readied for the sight they see. It is easier than it should be to picture the same expression on the wearer of the mask, or who he assumes the wearer to be, at least. He dislikes the image quite a bit.

 _You ought to smile, sunshine,_ he yearns to say. The words would be far from appropriate with the child laying between them. Instead, he murmurs, “Do you hide every time you realize our work will cross?”

Tragedy stiffens, “Did I not say that I do not hide from death?”

“Your words do not fool me, _godling,”_ though not a child, Tragedy is a young god. His love or not, that fact remains true, “centuries of existence has sharpened my mind, not dulled it. I know well the difference between my name and my work being spoken and you, little god, do not speak my name. You may not hide from my work, but you hide yourself from _me_ and I find myself very curious as to why that is.”

“...I have little desire for interaction, Lord Death.” Tragedy replies after a moment of silence. 

Again, the words are too vague for his taste and more questions rise to the surface in their wake. Does the smaller god not wish for interaction with anyone or is it Death alone he strives to avoid? If it is the latter, then why? If it is his sunshine, then _why?!_ “Not one for company, are you? And, as I’ve said before, just Death will do. Lord is such a distancing title, is it not?”

Surprisingly, the other deity snorts, the sound rueful and amused, “Distancing? You say that as if there is anything more between us than distance alone. We are not companions, Death.”

“So you’ve said,” he sighed, recalling the same words being snapped at him just the night before, “so you’ve sa—Tragedy,” his voice lowered dangerously, “what are you doing with the child?”

“Your work here is done, Lord Death.” Gently adjusting the bundle he now carried in his arms, the god turned to face him with an expression he could not see but assumed to be as bland as his tone. “What becomes of the young one’s body is of no concern to you.”

Duty forces his hopes to the side. “The mortal will notice her child gone.”

“The mortal is the _reason_ her child is gone!” Tragedy snapped. “She has no want for them. They will not be missed.”

“You don’t know that for certain. What of the father? The mothers and fathers of the mother and father? Someone will know that the child is gone, Tragedy. The mortals will search for them.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you taking them?!”

“Because I _must!”_ Tragedy shouts.

His sockets narrow. “Must or merely want to?”

The younger god growls, “I need not explain myself to you, Lord Death. You would not understand and I refuse to allow _you_ of all gods to pass judgement on my actions.”

“Trag-”

“We part here, my Lord. Farewell.”

The last time he saw his love, his back had been turned to Death just as Tragedy turns his to him now. His last memory was not of a smile or the loving expression on his darling’s face, but of the sight of him turned as he walked away, the distance between them growing into something everlasting. His love is gone. He knows that. Still, he hopes that Tragedy is who he believes him to be, that coffee and a long lost name are more than the coincidences they could be. That they are a sign that the gods still perform miracles that bring forth the dead.

Time feels slow as he reaches out with his hand, calling, _“Geno, stop!”_

Tragedy stills.

His heart pounds. “Geno…”

Sighing, the smaller god turns, “Reaper.”

And that’s it.

That’s all the proof he needs.

_“Sunshine.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to a special person for reading this over and helping me decide on the chapter ending~
> 
> Like I said at the end of the last chapter: Reaper knows how to put two and two together. He had a hunch and hey! Looks like he's right.
> 
> Poor boy has no idea how to handle being right.


	5. Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaper has his sunshine back. Will he be able to keep him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm...not sure if chapter update notifications are given. If they are, then sorry for the rush of updates! I was just adding chapter titles, because why not?

_ His first love so often blessed him with such lovely gifts, though it took many years for them to reach him. Death was a patient man; however, and so, gleefully, he awaited every gift with the understanding that Life’s work took time to reach his hands.  _

_ Usually, her gifts were well worth the wait, like the stories he got to hear from kinder souls or the wonderful places her gifts led him to when they eventually called. When the surprises were especially wonderful, he liked to rush back to her with tales ready on his tongue and gifts of his own in his arms, such as metals and jewels and shards of glass; things that may have lacked as gifts, but withstood his touch and shined as brightly in the light as his Lady Life’s smile did under the sun. _

_ For quite some time the joy of their exchanges was enough to disguise the gap between them, born not of a lack of love, but of the touch he could not offer; the physical affection Life sought but Death could not provide. _

_ “I love you.” he murmured when there were no longer any smiles for metals and jewels and shards of glass to compare to. “I love you, my Lady Life, but I cannot bring to you the one gift you wish to receive.” _

_ “I love you,” Life whispered, eyes sad, “but I cannot offer you the gift you cannot give to me.” At the confusion visible in his smile, she chuckled quietly. “It is not only I who yearns for the touch of the one I love, my Lord Death.” _

_ “But it is you who is saddened by it, is it not?” _

_ “It is,” Life agreed, “but it is that same sadness that I see reflected in your eyes. I am not alone in my desire for that, that cannot be.” _

_ His gaze lowered, sad. “I wish you well, Lady Life. May the stars bring you into the arms of another who may hold you close as I could not.” _

_ Life bowed her head, “I wish you well, Lord Death, and pray to the powers beyond the stars that you, too, may one day hold another as you could not hold me.” _

_ It took many years before his ‘another’ came to him. _

_ He was well worth the wait. _

_ ‘Well worth the wait indeed,’ he thought with a smile, trying not to chuckle as he enjoyed a midnight stroll through a nearly abandoned street; his steps just slow enough that the small form stalking him from the shadows wouldn’t struggle to follow his trail. ‘My little duckling is so adorable.’ _

_ An intersection came up but he didn’t hesitate as he turned the corner of a building, his footsteps going silent the moment he lifted himself into the air and began climbing nothingness like one would a set of stairs. Once he was higher than most bothered looking as they walked, he stopped and watched with unconcealed mirth as his duckling came around the corner and froze; confused at the empty street before him. _

_ “Lost, little duck?” he asked, laughing when his stalker jumped and nearly fell back in his rush to meet his gaze. “Or is it that you simply lost me for a moment there?” _

_ “Shut up, asshole…” His duckling growled, arms crossed self consciously as he flustered under Death’s amused stare. _

_ Smiling, he lowered himself back to the ground. “Come now, little duck, there’s no need for such harsh words.” _

_ “Fuck off.” _

_ “An odd thing to say to someone whose company you so clearly yearn for.” _

_ “I don’t-!” _

_ “You’ve been stalking me for three blocks.” _

_ Red faced, the smaller skeleton looked away. “...I...I just…” _

_ Eyes softening, the taller god stepped closer and brought a hand up to cup his duckling’s cheek, his amused smile sweetening as it warmed. “I missed you too, Geno.” _

_ “Asshole…” Geno mumbled, socket closing as he nuzzled into the comforting touch. “...It wasn’t three blocks.” _

_ “Hm, you’re right...it was four.” _

_ “Reaper!” _

_ He couldn’t help but laugh, Geno’s annoyed expression too cute to handle with the way his face scrunched up because of his scowl. “I’m kidding, duckling.” _

_ “Stop calling me that.” The smaller skeleton complained, accepting the hand offered to him with a glare and grumbling as they began walking.  _

_ Swinging their arms, he shrugged. “It’s cute though, isn’t it? And accurate, too, my darling little stalker.” _

_ Geno groaned and hid his face behind his scarf. “Stalker is even worse, idiot.’ _

_ “But still accurate.” _

_ “I hate you.” _

_ “That isn’t what you screamed last night.” _

_ “Month,” Geno was quick to correct, “last month.” _

_ His smile fell into a frown. “...It’s been that long?” _

_ “Since we’ve had sex? Yes. Since we’ve seen each other? Again, yes.” _

_ “Oh.” _

_ “Yeah,” Geno murmured, “oh.” _

_ At the upset tone, his steady pace came to a stop, the frown he wore deepening when Geno’s own walking stilled and a frown settled on the smaller skeletons face. “Geno…?” _

_ “You can do away with that guilty expression, Reaper. It’s fine.” _

_ “You wouldn’t be upset if it were fine, duckling.” The smaller remained silent. “Geno…”  _

_  “Honestly, Reaper, it’s fine.” _

_ “Geno.” _

_ “...” _

“Geno.” _he repeated, firmer._

_ “...Why won’t you take me with you?” Geno whispered, eyelight lowering to stare at the floor. “You say you missed me every time our paths cross, but if...if you’d just take me with, then-” _

_ “I can’t, Geno.” He sighed. _

_ The smaller pulled his hand away. “Don’t lie.” he stepped back. “You can take me. You simply  _ won’t.”

_ “Gen-” _

_ Geno turned to leave. “Enjoy the stars, Lord Death.” _

_ No. _

_ No! _

_ He darted forward, arms sliding around the smaller from behind and pulling him close. “Geno, please,” he pleaded, “I…” sighing, he pressed his teeth to the other skeleton’s skull, chin resting on his head as he gazed up at the stars in consideration. “...I can’t stand the thought of you in the higher realm, duckling.” _

_ “Because I’m an unknown? Because I was born a lower being?” _

_ Eyes softening, he shook his head, though Geno could only feel the motion rather than see it. “Because I love you, Geno.” _

_ “If you loved me then you’d take me!” Geno snapped, whirling around with an expression too sad to be considered angry. “You’d...you would take me, Reaper. You wouldn’t keep leaving me behind to wonder when the next time we’ll meet will be!” _

_ “Geno...” When he stepped forward, Geno stepped back, the distance between them almost as painful as the hurt in that eye. “Please stop walking away…” _

_ “Stop pushing me away!”  _

_ “I’m not!” _

_ “You are!” Geno cried, “Every time you leave you push me away! I...I know you’re a big deal in your realm, okay? I know that comes with a lot of responsibilities but...but…” No, no, no… Not tears. Not from his duckling. “...but it isn’t reputation or responsibility that brings you to leave me behind. It’s  _ choice _ and I...it makes me feel…” _

_  Unwanted. “They’ll look down on you,” he whispered, “Geno, they’ll consider you lesser and they’ll treat you as such, especially as an unknown. You’d be happier down here, away from their judgement and their scorn.” _

_ “I’d be happier with  _ you.” _ Geno argued. “I...I’m always happier with you. When you’re gone…” _

_ “...Everything seems duller.” Reaper murmured, hearing the words his lover did not say and understanding them better than the other may have thought. “Like storm clouds have overcome the sun and the world is grayer for it.” _

_ Eye wet, Geno nodded. “I’m tired of storm clouds, Reaper.” _

_ “Me too,” he whispered. “I just...I can’t bear the thought of their prejudice stealing away your smiles. The things they say about your kind can be horrible, Geno. You...you don’t deserve that. I…” his eyes hardened, “I won’t put you through that.” _

_ “So you won’t take me?” Geno asked, voice breaking alongside his heart. _

_ “I won’t.” Reaper confirmed. When a sob tore from his lover’s throat, he stepped forward faster than Geno could run and caught his hands with his own. “But there are houses here, duckling. Houses more than suitable to become a home.”      _

_ Hope.“You...you mean…?” _

_ “I won’t take you with me,” he clarified, “but I’ll stay, duckling. I’ll stay here, with you.” _

_ “Forever?” The smaller god asked, so, so hopeful. _

_ He nodded, promising, “Forever.” _

_ If the world without Geno was like a sky ridden by storm clouds, then seeing him smile was akin to sunlight breaking through the grey. _

_ “I love you, Reaper.” Geno whispered, thankful and loving. _

_ Heart warm, he pulled him close. “I love you too…” _

_ He grinned. _

“...Sunshine.” Reaper repeats, hoarse. Hope and confusion and utter elation too much for his voice to handle. “You’re...you’re my sunshine. You’re my Geno.”

“I am  _ not  _ yours, Lord Death.”  _ Geno  _ hisses, hold tightening on the child he held. “You’ve made that more than clear with the way you left me behind and the fucking  _ century _ you then spent ignoring my existence.”

What? He didn’t…? “Geno, I-!”

“Can go  _ fuck  _ yourself!” the small god growls, turning away again. “I played nice far longer than you deserve,  _ Lord  _ Death, so just...just leave me alone.”

“Geno, I...just wait!”

 His love doesn’t turn back. Instead, he says with anger, “I have work to finish.”

_ “Reaper!” Geno laughed, turning to push at him with a grin when the taller god’s infamous wandering hands made an appearance on his ass. “Stop, you idiot! I’m trying to work on this book!” _

_ “The rules were I could keep you company if I didn’t talk~” _

_ “Yeah, well,” a kiss to the smaller’s neck turns his laughter into a gasp, “t-they say actions speak louder than words a-and those hands of y-yours are practically s-screaming!” _

_ “Mm, do you want to join them?” _

_ There’s a little crevice on Geno’s hip. A scar from an incident with a mortal, he knows. It’s deliciously sensitive. _

_ Geno moans when fingers slip under his clothing to tease at it. “Y-you’re shameless!” _

_ “And you’re gorgeous.” he praises, smiling into his lover’s neck when the pen Geno holds settles onto the desk with a soft click. “Are you finally taking a break?” _

_ “Just a small one.” Geno gasps, head falling back against his shoulder. “T-there’s something I need t-to take care of. Something that n-needs to be done,” he grinds against the covered length pressed up against him. This time, Reaper is the one to moan, “though I-I’m sure it won’t take long to  _ finish off. _ ” _

_ “You brat!” Reaper growls, the sound shaking with laughter. “Just for that, I’m not going to stop until you’re begging for mercy.” _

_ Geno squeaks when he’s spun around and lifted, his teasing smile replaced with a look of panic as he’s dropped onto the very papers he was working on. “W-Wait! Reaper, I-!” whimpering at a sharp bite, he tries to speak again, protesting, “I h-have work t-to finish!” _

_ The words are spoken with a laughing moan.  _

Nothing like the way they were spoken just now.

“I…”

“Goodbye.” Geno snaps. “Hopefully, this time for good.”

The slightest trace of magic entered the room. 

Geno was going to teleport.

No.

_ No! _

He lunges forward, crying out,  _ “Geno!” _

“Wha-hey! Get off-!” his arms wrap around the smaller god just as the magic is released, the world around them flickering and spinning as they teleport away.

When Reaper blinks, the nursery is gone.

Replacing it...

“What…?” he whispers, stunned.

...a long stretch of graves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor, poor Reaper.
> 
> Poor Geno.
> 
> This isn't the last time you'll hear (well, see) me say that.
> 
> Anyways! Geno's duckling nickname? I love it. The reason for it?
> 
> Just...just think: Little, confused godling Geno latching onto Reaper and following him around in hopes of figuring out what the hell is going on in his life. Squee!
> 
> Also, anyone confused~?


	6. They Call Me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get rough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sad themes in this chapter, people. Beware cause they hit sensitive topics.

_ He digs frantically. _

_ He has no shovel to aid him. He has nothing beyond the claws he curls his fingers into as he tears through flowers and grass and dirt alike, choking on tears and the bile that burns his throat while he cries over the horrendous curse that is his unknown power. The curse that is his existence and all the good he ruins with it. _

_ He scrapes against rocks and cares not for the way his fingers begin to bleed, easily working through the stings, for what is mere pain of the body compared to the intense ache within his soul? Nothing. His blood and wounds are  _ nothing.

_ So he ignores them and digs. _

_ Deeper, deeper, yet deeper he goes. Wider, too. It needs to be perfect, though he bitterly wonders what perfection could be born from his hands, Still, he tries. He must. He digs and digs and digs under the judging eyes of the stars, wails a song of distress lost to the wind and words choked by guilt and horror, and a sadness too deep to truly name. _

_ “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” he gasps, gagging as the words tear from his throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” _

_ His apologies are not enough. They will never be enough to atone for the life he stole. He will never be forgiven. He will never forgive himself. _

_ He rubs his eyes to rid himself of the tears, though they merely fall faster, running streaks of ivory through the dirt and blood previous attempts have smeared across his face. Still, what few seconds of visibility he received are enough to tell him that he has dug deep enough, so he stills. _

_ “Flowers,” he whispers, painful and raw, “you need flowers, little one.” _

_ He aches, but he stands anyways, teetering unsteadily yet determined to seek out the loveliest flowers he can find.  _

_ Many were in season in the field he chose to lay his sins to rest and he selects the most vibrant of the mass of colors that seem to spread for miles. His hands taint their perfection with the crimson that stain them, but they remain lovely despite his accursed touch. _

_ Reds, yellows, and oranges, with shades of pink and pops of white. The hole he dug looks filled sunlight from the sky before dusk. It’s beautiful. _

_ It’s just what they deserve. _

_ Swallowing his useless apologies, he turned and gently picked up the bloodied bundle of red resting at his side. His sin. The curse of his existence in the flesh. _

_ A child he murdered before they ever got to breathe. _

_ Slowly, he lowered them into the flower filled hold, silent tears falling to keep them company. “I’m sorry,” slips out, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, little one. I’m sorry your father failed to care and your mother couldn’t keep you safe. I’m so, so sorry.”   _

_ The wind blows and he rushes to cover them with the soil that will blanket their body, desperate to keep the breeze from disturbing their wrapped form. Filling the hole is an easier task than digging it, but it makes him feel heavier somehow, and his sobs return with a vengeance. _

_ As he falls against what will come to be the first grave of many, too distraught to move, he will find that, though the tears eventually end, his heart will never quite stops it’s cries. _

_ “I’m sorry...” _

“...Reaper,” he murmurs, anger quickly fading into unease. Of all the gods to stumble into his field, Reaper was the last he ever wished to see stand among the graves. “I...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take you with.”

“Geno,” Reaper whispers; horrified, “what...what is this…? Where are we?”

He liked to lie to himself. It made dealing with his heartaches much easier, even if the nasty truths he covered with a hatred that never was always came around to bother him in the night. Geno despised Reaper. He did. He… 

He didn’t.

Despite all his anger and the immense betrayal that kept his fractured heart from healing, Geno didn’t hate his husband, even if he often tried to trick himself into believing he did. The way the waver in the taller skeleton’s voice hurt proved just how much of a lie his hatred for Reaper really was. He wanted to soothe him. Geno wanted to comfort the asshole who left him behind with none. It made him equal parts angry and sad.

_ ‘Why did you have to return?’  _ Why could he never shake his rebellious hopes that Reaper one day would? 

“You of all gods should know the sight of a graveyard, Lord Death.” he murmured, the spiteful respect in the title long gone. Considered young, he found it ironic that he felt so old with how his exhaustion suddenly overcame him, bringing a slump to his shoulders and unsteadiness to his burdened arms. “Your work often leads to them, after all, just as mine tends to do as well.” 

“Your work…” Reaper’s brows furrowed before raising in surprise. When he spoke Geno’s name, it was said in a manner that made it seem as if the taller god forgot it, “Tragedy. Your work as Tragedy.”

He was glad for his mask and the way it hid his shame. “Yes.”

* * *

 

When he lost his love, Geno had been an unknown; a made god left unknowing of his name and all the duty and power it entitled.

Now, it seemed as though his sunshine was no longer unknown.

And no longer lost.

How either of those came to be, Reaper did not know, nor did he care at the moment, though, admittedly, seeing the dead rise did have him shaken. Eleated, yes, but shaken all the same and torn between happiness and hurt.

His love was back!  _ Happiness. _

But Reaper hadn’t known. Not until now; decades after he was lost.  _ Hurt. _

“Lord Death…” At the wounded noise he made, Geno sighed,  _ “Reaper,  _ please...please just go. You weren’t meant to join me here. There...t-there is nothing h-here for you.”

The mask of anguish hid his love’s face, but Reaper knew him too well not to notice the lie. There was something here for him. 

_ “You  _ are here, sunshine. I’m not leaving.”

Stiffening, Geno stepped back; shaking. “You...you keep calling me that. Stop it. You don’t...you-!” Shoulder’s hunching, he continued his backwards retreat, the silent bundle still in his arms. “Just...just  _ leave,  _ Reaper. You needn’t force yourself to stay.”

He _couldn’t_ leave. Not without answers. Not ever, if this was where his love remained. “By my own choice, I wish to stay. There is no force, sunshine.”

Another stop back. “Stop calling me that, damnit! Just...just Go!  _ Go!” _

“I won’t.” he denied, following Geno’s steps. “I...sun-” Geno flinched, “...Geno. I won’t leave you. Not...not unless you  _ make  _ me. Not unless you truly wish me to. You...you’re,” breathless, he laughed, eyes stinging with tears, “you’re here, darling. You’re  _ here!  _ How can I possibly leave?”

“You’ve proved excellent at leaving before, Death.” Geno hissed, water in the unsteadiness of his voice. 

He faltered. “Geno…?”

“I-you…!” When his voice cracked, Geno growled, always so frustrated whenever he couldn’t stop himself from being weak. “I d-don’t...I don’t have time for this. Y-you...your presence here interferes with my work. Leave at once or risk being taken to the king, Lord Death. I...I will not let the obstruction of my work g-go unpunished.”

“You threaten me?” He whispered.

A pain so terrible and deep it hurt. That’s all the mask allowed him to see. “Leave.”

_ A hand caught his robe just as he turned. Curious, he glanced back. “Sweetling?” _

_ “Stay.” Geno whispered, socket weighed by sleep and words rough as a result of last night’s pleasure. “Don’t go. Stay…” _

_ “I have duties, little god.” _

_ Eye falling shut, the smaller skeleton weakly tugged on his robe. “Just a little longer...” he murmured, words softening as he fought off slumber. “Your work can wait just a little longer, can’t it?” _

_ “Geno…” _

_ “Stay…” Hand dropping from Reaper’s robe, Geno’s breathing evened as he slipped away; two little, sleepy words murmured before he did so: _

_ “Don’t leave.” _

“If the scorn of a king is what I must face to remain at your side,” he stepped forward, “then I welcome it. Take me to our King, Geno. Let his ire rain down upon my head. Let him punish me. I shall suffer his wrath with a smile if it means I am allowed precious moments with you near.”

“Interfering with another’s work is no small offense.” 

Again, he stepped forward. Geno didn’t move away. “The worst of the punishments Asgore could bestow upon me could never match the pain I’d feel from the torture of you not at my side.”

“Why…? Why do y-you want to s-stay…?” The mask Geno wore was cold against his hand. “I...i-it’s been...b-been…”

“Ninety three years.” he whispered, stroking a painted tear on the porcelain beneath his thumb. “It’s been ninety three years since I’ve last seen your face. A century, almost. A century since you walked away and never came back.”

“I...I c-came back!” Geno shouted, the words breaking off into gasping sobs. “I came b-back, y-you...you f-fucker! I l-left after I k-kissed you goodbye because...b-because you...you had…”

Tears of his own dripped down his cheeks. He recalled that day so well. “Work. I had to leave to attend to my duties, so you decided to go into town for a book you wanted that was meant to be released that day. We kissed and then you left before me. You always skip a bit when you’re excited, sunshine, and it’s...it was so cute that I couldn’t help but watch with a smile. I wouldn’t have if I...if I knew you’d never make it back.” 

Arms full, Geno kicked out at him violently; screaming, “I s-said I came back! I...I came back, d-damnit! I did!  _ Y-you’re  _ the one that never returned!”

“I did.” he argued, wincing at the hits but not attempting to defend himself. “Geno, I  _ d-did  _ but you were...you were,” his voice broke, “sunshine, I saw the blood. I...I  _ felt  _ my essence in that room. It was not my hands that took you but it was that which fills my core that  _ stole  _ you. You may have returned but you...you never came back from where you left once you did. And I…” brokenly, he laughed, “I couldn’t stand it. Your blood. The knowledge that you were gone because of the very thing I am. It sickened me. I...it  _ broke  _ me, Geno. There…” gasping, he fought through his tears to continued. “There was no body. No dust. Just that terrible stain and the knowledge you were gone. That you were Dead.”

Geno went still. “...D-dead?”

“I d-don’t know how you stand before me n-now,” he choked, “but, y-yes, sunshine. You were dead. D-do...do you not remember?”

“I...I wasn’t.” Geno whispered, trembling.

“You were.” He knew what death felt like. It filled every crevice within him. It was who and what he was. “Geno, you were.”

Slowly, the smaller god shook his head. “I...i-it wasn’t me. I d-didn’t-oh gods.” A hand left the child he held and pressed against the mouth of his mask. “O-oh gods, n-no. You...y-you didn’t-! You t-thought I- that I-!” rapidly, the small skeleton’s chest heaved with audible breaths, Geno’s shaking growing as he fell into a panic. “Y-you...it…,” wheezing, he stepped closer. “R-Reaper, i-it...it wasn’t...i-it wasn’t m-me...it wasn’t m-me!”

That...that was impossible. “I know the scent of your blood, Geno. I...I know the feel of my power.”

Wildly, Geno shook his head. “It...i-it wasn’t! G-gods, I thought...I d-didn’t…!” Gagging, he crumpled to the ground, hand pressed firmer to his mask. “Y-you...you didn’t k-know…! You didn’t know! T-that-! I-it was my blood, Reaper. I-it was my blood b-but it wasn’t-”

“Geno…”

“—It wasn’t m-my death!” Geno cried desperately, abandoning his false mouth in favor of reaching out to grasp the hem of the elder god’s robes. “I-it...it wasn’t m-my death! O-oh gods, Reaper, I...I-I’m sorry. I’m s-sorry! It...i-it wasn’t mine.”

Hysterical laughter fell from his mouth. “G-Geno...it...it had to be. Who else would have died in our bedroom?”

Geno’s sobbing grew harder. “I...I’m s-sorry! I’m s-sorry! Gods, I...I’m…!”

“Geno?” Like his husband, he was starting to panic, suddenly aware that there was something vital he was missing. “Geno, w-whose death would it have been?”

Choked by tears, the smaller skeleton slowly tilted his head down, the blank eyes of his mask breaking Reaper’s stare…

...to gaze down at the bundle he held.

At.

The.

Child.

* * *

 

_ Dressed in black, he walks down the busy path to his home, his head bowed and tears dripping from his socket while he holds his too flat stomach with trembling hands. _

_ “Oh, that poor thing…” A woman whispers, the pity in her voice making him flinch.  _

_ At her side, another voice rings out; confused. “What’s wrong with them?” _

_ “The poor dear lost a child, I heard. A miscarriage, they say. Dead before the little thing even left the womb.” _

_ He bites his tongue to still his sob, recalling sharp, terrifying pain and the blood that fell from between his legs. Stolen away by his curse just three days ago and his child was already a rumor. No longer a child, but gossip instead. _

_ Were mortals truly that cruel?  _

_ “No!” the second woman gasps, stunned. “How horrible!” _

_ Just before he turns the corner, he hears it. Something clicks when he does. _

_ “What a  _ tragedy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to the lovely TKWolf45 who reads my chapters when I need help and encourages my terribly mean plots~ <3
> 
> So, um, that's how Geno found out what god he was!
> 
> Also, I'd give out prizes to anyone who guess what was up with Geno but, um, kind of a cruel thing to reward.
> 
> (NinaBeena, please don't kill me. I swear I'm sorry!)


	7. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Miscarriage.

Reaper remembers that horrible day well. Partly because the wound it left never healed, made worse by memory of just how lovely their morning had been up until he and his love said their goodbyes before his work called him away. At the time, things had been going so well. They were calm. Peaceful. Happy. 

And a little heated, too. 

_You would have thought the two of them grand performers and masters of the musical arts with the lively symphony they were performing that morning. There was no mistro to instruct their song and no instruments to play it with, yet, together, they made due with restless rolling and roaming hands to produce a masterpiece of breathy noises and loud, musical laughter._

_“R-Reaper!” Geno laughed, the sound much higher than his naturally low tone really should have allowed. Pinned beneath his love, he snorted and tried to bat away the hands that crept beneath his night clothes to smooth over summoned flesh. “Are you trying t-to feel me up or t-tickle me?”_

_Smiling at the beautiful sounds of his husband’s joy, the older god winked and turned a wiggling poke into a firm caress that had Geno’s laughter transitioning into a soft gasp. What a lovely noise. “Both.” His smile widened, “Tickling as punishment for my rude awakening and a bit of groping to soothe the ire of the great god you’ve angered, little godling.”_

_Although the things his love’s hands were doing were deliciously distracting, Geno still found himself left with enough coherent thought to tease, “G-great god? You didn’t s-sound so great when you s-shrieked after I spilled that w-water on you!”_

_They took to keeping a pitcher of water and a glass on their nightstand about a week ago when the weather began taking a sweltering turn. If either of them woke up, hot and parched, then the water would be right there; a little warm, but within reach._

_Well, within Reaper’s reach._

_Geno, who slept on the side away from the table, had to crawl over his husband whenever he wanted a glass for himself. Usually, this wasn’t a problem and he’d be able to relieve his thirst without waking his husband._ Usually.

_A little too uncoordinated in his sleepy state, Geno missed his cup when pouring the water…_

_...and dumped the stream on Reaper’s face instead._

_Recalling the way Reaper screeched like a cat getting their tail stepped on had more laughter falling from Geno’s mouth. Guessing at what was interrupting the tasteful little noises of pleasure with choked out laughter, Reaper narrowed his eyes playfully and growled, “Are you making a fool of me in that lovely skull of yours, little god?”_

_“N-no!” Geno denied, laughing harder at the wide sockets and ungraceful flailing that flashed through his mind._

_“Lying to me now, are you? Tsk, tsk. Clearly, the dreadful punishment of tickling isn’t enough to make you regret your actions. I’ll have to resort to other forms of torture, it seems, but what? Whipping? Spanking?” Voice lowering, he murmured, “Ravishing, maybe?”_

_Cheeks flushed from laughter darkened. “Yes.”_

_“Which one?” The taller questioned, leaning over his small lover to brush their grins together. “I gave you three options, sunshine.”_

_“I know,” Geno purred, “and I answered. Yes.” To all three._

_Well, who was he to argue when his victim was willingly choosing such a delightful mix of punishments? “Good answer.”_

_When their teeth met in a soft kiss that steadily grew firmer, the song of laughter and teasing little sounds they were performing came to an end. Without it, the room fell silent._

_It didn’t stay that way for long._

* * *

 

_“Genoooooo.” he whined sometime later when the morning began creeping away to make room for noon. Tangled in their stained sheets, he watched with lidded eyes as his love wiped himself down with a rag, appreciating the view greatly but yearning for the smaller god’s warm body pressed against his own once more. “You’re too far. Come cuddle with me, sunshine. I miss you~”_

_Twisting and turning before the mirror, Geno ignored him and eyed his reflection as he ensured that no evidence of their coupling was left on his skin. Why he didn’t just shower, Reaper didn’t know, but he certainly didn’t mind the pretty picture his marked up husband was making. “Did I miss anything?”_

_“There’s a smudge on your stomach.”_

_Nodding in thanks, the younger god slid the damp cloth across the soft curve of his stomach. “Hmm…” Geno hummed, smiling slightly as he followed the shape of his chubby, rounded flesh with the rag._

_Smiling himself, Reaper gently murmured, “Finally seeing the beauty in your soft form, love?” It always pained him when Geno couldn’t seem to appreciate just how lovely his summoned form was; softer shape and all. Reaper could only hope that was finally changing._

_Smile turning secretive, Geno merely shrugged and began shrugging on some fresh clothing. “I’m seeing the beauty in something, alright.”_

_“Is it you in my clothes?” He wasn’t sure why his husband chose to buy white clothing when it meant Geno was always stealing his things to disguise his wound, but Reaper sure as hell wasn’t going to complain. His sunshine looked good dressed in his robes, even if they were too long to fit well. “That’s definitely something beautiful.”_

_“Oh shut up, idiot.”_

_“Always so mean.”_

_“Always such a flirt. You’re not charming me back into that bed, Reaper. You have your duties to attend to.”_

_“Do those duties include finally finding out the secret you’ve been keeping from me the last few days?”_

_Grinning, Geno shook his head and walked around the bed to tug him out of bed. It didn’t work, but the effort was noted. “I’ll tell you tonight, promise. After we’ve had dinner at that overly extravagant restaurant you insist on taking me to.”_

_“It’s your birthday today, sunshine,” he reminded, “I’m allowed to spoil you on such a wonderful occasion.”_

_“My birthday is in three days, idiot.” Finally getting Reaper out of bed, Geno leaned up and pressed a kiss to his chin. “We’re just celebrating today because you have that festival to attend on the actual date. Don’t go letting your old age mix the dates up for good, love.”_

_Offended, he swatted the smaller on the ass as he moved to the closet. “Brat,” he grumbled, “old is just a meaningless word when you’re a god.”_

_“Says the one who likes to call me godling due to my age. Not creepy at all, by the way. Calling your husband a word better suited for a child.”_

_“You’re small and cute. Don’t make my loving nickname weird.”_

_“It’s pretty weird on it’s own, dear.”_

_As the two continued readying for the day, they kept up their exchange of words with smiles on their faces. Not much of what they said was new, but it was familiar and fun and spoke of a routine born from years of life lived together under one roof. It didn’t have to be new to be exciting. Not when the familiarity made them happy._

_“Will you be here when I get back?” Reaper murmured once he finally resembled the respectable god he was meant to be._

_Wrapped up in his arms, Geno smiled. “I will. I’m going to head out to the bookseller. I’ve waited months for the sequel to my favorite story to finally come around and I’ll go insane if I have to wait any longer to pick it up. I don’t plan to do much but read, so there’s really no reason I can think of as to why I wouldn’t be here whenever you return.”_

_“My little bookworm.”_

_“How many more years have to pass before you stop adding ‘little’ to your petnames?”_

_Chuckling, he bent down a bit and stole a kiss. “However many it takes for you to grow. I’ve never seen a grown man who was so tiny.”_

_“I am three_ _inches below five feet!”_

_“And_ I _am eight taller than that. You’re small, my love. Accept it and bask in the affection it makes me want to shower you in. Also, kiss me.”_

_“Needy, needy.” Geno chuckled, leaning up and pressing their teeth together. “Be safe, Reaper. I’ll see you when you return.”_

_Reaper pulled him back in when he stepped in. One more kiss was shared. “Be safe, sunshine. I love you.”_

_“I love you too.”_

_When Geno broke away, this time he let him. “Bye, sunshine. Miss you already.”_

_Geno, excited for his book, was already walking away with an excited skip every other step. “Bye, Reaps. Miss you more.”_

_Reaper left with a smile when he could no longer see his love’s back._

* * *

 

When Geno had plans, Reaper always used to wait until he left before heading off to work. Geno, done with whatever had to do, would return home to an empty house; reassured by the ring he wore that the silence wouldn’t last forever. That his god would return. Yes, the house could be a little unnerving when left alone, but he _hadn’t_ been alone, had he?

Not on that day.

Not at first.

_Since he found out, he was trying to decide the best time and way to tell the elder god. Should it be over the birthday dinner? Or maybe he should wait a bit?_

_He made it to the bookstore, snatching the sequel he was looking for, and he decided to browse a little more. Something about books and the comfortable silence around him always made Geno feel better, somehow. Even when he wandered into the sections of the store where the books didn’t catch the young god’s eye, he stayed in a good mood._

_He stopped his fantasies for a second and found himself in the middle of the children’s books. Slowly, he picked one out: “Three Big Skeletons and the Small Bad Human”. It brought a surge of nostalgia to the small skeleton’s SOUL, but a burst of excitement. Maybe he should buy this one too?_

_It wasn’t something he let himself do often, but he thought back to his childhood and the bittersweet memories of reading his brother to sleep. Picturing another little bundle of bones in Papyrus’ place hurt, but it also made him smile. A little boy or girl to read to after all these years…?_

_He got the book._

_“Look at me,” he grinned, browsing for more stories that might catch his eye, “I’m already buying you things and you’re not even out of the womb, little love. You’re going to be spoiled rotten, aren’t you?”_

_It was impossible for the little thing to answer. The pregnancy was still so new that his little souling was far from even being seen through his flesh. There would be no kicking around or tiny happy pulses from his child to fool himself into thinking that his son or daughter was responding to him. Still, Geno was excited. Happy, too. He decided that maybe, just maybe, a bit of the joy he felt at the thought of spoiling his child silly came from them._

_“Reaper is going to love you.” He knew his husband would. “I...I think I’ll definitely tell him tonight.”_

_Just as he was reaching for another book, his stomach churned unpleasantly and his vision swam. Overcome by weakness, Geno dropped the small pile of books he held and leaned against a sturdy shelf for support just as another wave of nausea overcame him. ‘Shit.’_

_Clamping a hand over his mouth, he waved away the concerned questions from another shopper and hurriedly made his way to the bathroom, muffled gags and bouts of dizziness making the trip feel agonizingly slow. Just as he slammed the door open and rushed into a stall, his restrain broke and he fell before a toilet; vomiting._

_‘Damnit.’ Choking a bit, he gripped the edges of the toilet and clenched his eyes shut as another round of vomit left his mouth. ‘It’s not even morning. Isn’t it called morning sickness because you get it in the morning?!’_

_It took longer than he would have liked for his body to stop punishing him. By the time his gagging stopped and his nausea was reduced down to something sickening yet easily ignored, Geno was exhausted. Most of what came out was thin, runny magic. Stomach acid since he had nothing else in him to lose. He planned on getting a late breakfast on the way back, but…._

_Flushing the mess with a grimace, the pregnant skeleton shakily pushed himself up onto his feet. ‘That’s not happening.”_

_Blinking the blurriness and tears out of his eye, he groaned a bit and slowly made his way to the sink to wash his hands and face. Thankfully, this little episode came around at the store. He wanted to tell Reaper about their child on his own terms._

_Hiding his nausea was hard when it simply wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he puked, but he was doing a decent job at it so far. No apparent morning sickness, no way for Reaper to make the connection that Geno was pregnant before he got to tell him. Perfect._

_“I think it’s time for us to go home, little love. Mama feels like shit after that. We can curl up in bed and nap until your father gets back.” Hopefully he would feel well enough to go to that restaurant. They supposedly had an excellent chocolate cake there._

_Stretching out at bit and absentmindedly rubbing at his aching pelvis and back, Geno sighed and left the bathroom. The worried customer from before walked up with his dropped books in hand and he smiled thankfully, reassuring the poor concerned teenager that he was fine. Just a little sick, he said. The whole pregnancy thing tended to throw people off considering his gender._

_After a bit of chatting, he paid for his books and left the store with a bag hanging from his wrist. Stars, he was tired. That wasn’t all that strange for him, but this kind of exhaustion…._

_“Maybe I shouldn’t have started the day off with sex…” Reaper was annoyingly attractive though. That attractiveness was probably the reason he got pregnant to begin with. His husband’s irritating, sexy smirk paired with that low sensual tone… Stars, it just got to him. And the asshole knew it too. “...Can’t say I regret it all that much.”_

_Throughout his walk back home, Geno had to stop and catch his breath quite a few times. His eyes hurt, his back hurt, his pelvis hurt, and stars, he just so tired. Seeing his home finally appear in his line of sight nearly had him bursting into relieved tears and he quick to make his way over. Bag of books on the table, slippers off near the door…. With a relieved groan, he slid under their rumpled sheets and curled up for a nice, long nap._

_“Sleep well, little love…”_

* * *

 

_Pain._

_It comes without warning when he is deep into his sleep and is so sudden and sharp that it jolts him from his dreams the instant it is felt._

_“W-what…?” he whispered, tired and confused but— “A-ah!”_

_Oh gods, it hurts. It...it…_

_Another sharp jabs forces out a scream. Someone is stabbing him, he’s sure. The pain is too sharp to be anything but the blade of a knife digging into his flesh. Digging into his sto—_

_No._

_No, no, no!_

_“M-my...my baby…” Forcing himself out of the small ball he has curled into, Geno tries to sit up but fails when a wave of hurt overwhelms him. It’s not a knife he feels anymore, but glass. It feels like he swallowed glass and every little shard is tearing through him as it passes, ripping holes throughout his inside and cutting him far more deeply than the blade that left his wound ever did. “No, no…” he sobs, trying again to sit. He needs...he needs.... “Reaper! R-Reaps, I...I…” help me, please, come help me. Help_ us!

_Screaming when the shards of glass turn to fire, he scrambles for the headboard and shakily drags himself up. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts but the fear is stronger than the pain. Heaving uneven breaths through gasping jobs and gags of nausea, he finally managed to sit and fumbles for the lamp at the side of their bed. The pitch of water near it crashes to the floor just before he finds the switch and the light clicks on._

_Geno screams at the sight of blood pooling in the bed._

_It’s wet and warm and_ everywhere. _It scares him, so he screams and screams and screams, his eyelight shrinking with his fear so drastically that his socket nearly looks void. ‘Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…!’_

_The fire burning him from within rages and the blood grows, dripping from between his legs in a manner so painful his screams raise sharply enough that they seem to slip into silence. When something feels like it shifts, he screeches his husband’s name, begging the stars and gods and anyone else that will hear to bring his husband to his side. Reaper always helps when he is in need. Reaper always, always helps and Geno needs him. Their child needs him!_

_Someone pounds on his front door. “H-Hello?!” A neighbor._

_Sobbing, Geno tries to call out, “help,” but he can’t form the words. His vision is darkening and his insides are burning and he’s terrified. ‘My baby! My...my baby!’_

_There’s a crash just when he turns and vomits. “Hello?! Hel-oh gods!”_

_Arms slide around him._

_He doesn’t feel them._

_“I...I’m going to help you, okay?!”_

_He doesn’t hear the words._

_All he can focus on is the pain. On the blood he can feel sliding from his most intimate area of flesh._

_On the painful feel of_ something _trying to be expelled._

_It’s too early._

_It’s too early. It’s too early. It’s too early._

* * *

 

_He doesn’t get to see them._

_He doesn’t get to hold them._

_He doesn’t even get to know their gender._

_The instant the small, warped fetus is pushed from his body, they crumble into bloodied dust in the hands of the doctor who reached for their too small form. Geno’s magic was all that kept them together within his womb. Now that his little love is out, there is no more magic to piece them together. No more magic to give the illusion of life._

_“Sir…” the doctor whispers, hands full of dust and expression one of intense pity. “What...what would you like us to do with the dust?”_

_His baby didn’t get to live. They didn’t get the chance to live and love and there is nothing in this world they were allowed to grow attached to. No toys, no clothes...not even the books Geno bought earlier that day. The hospital offers a small urn, but the thought of his little love poured into something so hollow and impersonal merely worsens his cries._

_He has no choice. He needs to carry his child home somehow._

_He chooses a yellow urn. It reminds him of the sun; his husband’s favorite star._

_It is the smallest urn he has ever seen._

* * *

 

Reaper picked up flowers for Geno that day. His love wasn’t very fond of them, but they were cheesy and classic and always made him snort whenever he gave them as a present. “You romantic idiot,” Geno would always say, expression warm and fond even as he teased Reaper about how he was sure his flirting tactics came from mushy romance novels. What made it better was the fact that Reaper couldn’t touch the damn things without them dying, so they were always brown and dead by the time he was able to press them into his love’s hands. It made Geno laugh more.

There was no laughter that day.

_Reaper is smiling when he returns home. It wilts like the flowers in his hand the moment his eyes land on their bed where Geno prefers to wait for him and sees that the bed is empty._

_Empty but_ stained.

_“G-Geno…” he whispers, the bouquet he holds crumbling to dust as his power surges with his horror. All along their windowsill, the little potted plants his husband likes to keep blacken. He doesn’t even noticed, too focused on the ruined bedding he falls onto his knees before. “Ge...Geno…”_

_Hesitantly, he reaches out. The blood has cooled but there is too much for all of it to have dried and it stains his hands when his fingers press into the massive stain. Geno always bleeds, but not this much. Never, never, never this much. “S-sunshine?” he calls out weakly, hoping for an answer. When none comes, he cries out, louder, “SUNSHINE?! Geno?! Are...are you home?!”_

_Only the silence answers him._

_Desperate, he claws at the bloodied sheets. Maybe it isn’t Geno’s. ‘Please, please, please don’t be his!’ But he knows the color of his love’s blood. The familiar red. He knows the color and the scent and even the taste, and, worse, is that he knows there is no fooling himself into believing it isn’t Geno’s._

_There is no ignoring the lingering essence in the room either._

His _essence._

_Death._

_The first tear falls. ‘No.’_

_The second. ‘No.’_

_The third. ‘No.’_

_The fourth is far from the last._

_Bedding clutched to his chest, Reaper throws his head back and screams. He screams and screams and screams, each new shriek darker than the last until the unholy sound no longer resembles the cries of a broken man; though they are. They are animalistic and otherworldly and send all who hear them running, but they are still sobs. They are the wails of a man who, in an instant, has lost everything he held dearest to his heart. They are heartbreak put into sound._

_And they all form a single word:_

_“GENO!”_

* * *

 

_They want to keep Geno for a few days. He refuses. When they insist, he refuses louder. When, still, they persist in their attempts at keeping him, he snaps and screams. What, he doesn’t remember. He just screams and screams and screams like he screamed and screamed and screamed when his child was dying within his womb. They try to calm him, to sedate him, but his screams grow louder. Stronger._

_People begin screaming back._

_Down the halls, mothers and fathers and elders and even children scream. The doctors rush from his room and Geno scrambles to his feet. His tired and unsteady and so, so worn, but he wobbles over to his little yellow child all the same and gently scoops them into his arms. He’s too weak to risk teleporting, but his trembling legs don’t want to move._

_He decides to risk it._

_He’s a little disappointed that he survives the jump home._

_“Reaper…” He whimpers, knowing his husband will be home by now. It’s well into the night. “Reaper...Reaper….”_

_Somehow, he makes it into the bedroom. His trembling legs bring him to a stop when he sees the mess it is. The soiled bedding is on the floor, the bed is upturned, and it looks as if a storm has swept through and torn things from their closet and their walls. Even his bookshelf is knocked over, and Geno knows that it is solid and hard to topple. “Reaps…?”_

_No answer. He’s worried._

_But he’s tired._

_Slowly, he makes his way over to the mess of ruined bedding on the floor and sinks down. He should change, but he distantly notes that it seems like most of his clothing is gone. Reaper’s too._

_At the time, he doesn’t understand what that means._

_He merely curls around the too tiny urn in his arms and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to be awake._

_He doesn’t want to be_ alive.

_But sleeping is as close to death as he dares to get. There is one thing left for him, after all. One love. When he wakes, Reaper will be there and, somehow, Geno will find a way to apologize for what he has done. For who he has lost them._

_He sleeps._

_Reaper is not there in the morning._

_He waits, but his love does not come in the afternoon either, or the day, nor does he arrive in the night. He sleeps and wakes again but, still, Reaper does not come._

_On the third morning, Geno rises from the floor and dresses in the only black robe his husband has left._

_On the third afternoon, he buries his child._

_On the third day, he travels home and learns his name._

_On the third evening, he sits, alone, in his ruined bedroom._

_And he shatters all over again._

_Reaper has not come._

_By the time his birthday passes, Geno knows that he never will._

* * *

 

Geno lost a husband and child all at once, and the pain has never gone away.

Reaper thought he lost a husband. Now, he knows the truth, and it drags up a memory he once thought meaningless from the day he left his home.

_He has his old closet stuffed with his things by the time he hears footsteps downstairs. Sockets wet, he brushes his hand against the box he has filled with his love’s clothing and favorite things and pushes it under his bed where it will be close, but kept unseen._

_“Brother…?” Reaper hears. The younger god of death must have seen his light on from under the door. “Have you come for a visit?”_

_When the door opens and he turns to face his brother, the younger gasps at the misery on his face. “Death! What-”_

_He doesn’t want to talk about it. “Just a tough job, little brother. I...I think I would like to stay here for now, if you don’t mind my return. I need...distance. From—” the mortal realm. From the memories of his home. “—work.”_

_His brother’s gaze softens and he nods. “Of course, Death. To be honest, I could use the comfort of my brother. I…” A fragile soul, his eyes begin to water. “I had to take the life of a child today.”_

_“Oh, Paps…”_

_The younger god looks miserable._

_“They weren’t even out of their mother’s womb.”_

A near century later, Reaper’s knows the true horror of his brother's actions.

He knows who he has lost.

And he knows what he has ruined.

Tears falling faster, he drops to his knees…

...and breaks like he did once before.

_‘What have I done?’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG shout out to the wonderful TKWolf who kept my motivation going by thinking up a scene to help the creative juices flow~ because of them, this chapter is out today! Yay!
> 
> They also encourage my painful ideas <3
> 
> So! Things happened in this chapter, huh? I'm...sorry.


	8. Little Steps (And The Ones Who Will Never Walk Them)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death and Tragedy start to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awwww, for any Glimpse fans out there:
> 
> onlyplatonicrl over on tumblr made a little thing based on the Fatal! Geno chapters of "A Glimpse Into Forever" as a what-if scenario for Reaper deciding to leave Geno behind. I think they mentioned possibly planning to add it on AO3, but here's a link anyways! Please check it out (it hurts in the best of ways)!
> 
> [click here](https://onlyplatonicirl.tumblr.com/post/186787525769/this-is-a-au-of-their-fic-a-glimse-into-forever)

_The pain is unbearable._

_Head thrown back, she screams and screams and screams, her sockets wide open but sight distorted with tears and pain. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! She has never felt pain like this before._

_There is a pressure around her hands that offers a poor distraction to her torment, but any distraction at all is that much more attention off of the tearing of her flesh, and the blood that pools beneath her. Desperate, she curls her fingers into claws and returns that pressure tenfold._

_Creaking, cracking bone is drowned by the sounds of her torture._

_“Darling, you risk breaking my hand with your hold.”_

_The words her husband speaks are indistinguishable to the doctors and midwives fussing all around her. To her, they are clear, and she snarls in his direction in response. “Your fucking child is risking the fracturing of my pelvis! If I am forced to handle that,” a scream stretches the word, “t-then you can handle a broken finger or two, Gaster!”_

_“They’re your child too, dear.”_

_Rather than honoring him with her words, she chooses to tighten her grip further, finding a vindictive sort of glee in the way his smile strains in her blurry vision. ‘Take that, asshole!’ she thinks._

_“I can see their head!”_

_And then she thinks no more, too consumed by the stress of pushing a child from her womb in what she is sure is the most difficult labor these poor, poor doctors have ever seen._

_What minutes pass feel like hours. She is tired and sore and fairly positive that she began crumbling into dust a few times during the process. Despite all that, she is elated, too, the exhaustion that tilts her grin downwards vanishing the instant a small bundle is pressed into her arms._

_“A boy.” she breathes, overjoyed. “Look, darling, a boy!”_

_Hesitantly, her husband leans over and peers at the whining bundle of bones. Their child is awake and upset at the new, confusing world he does not yet understand and soon turns to tears to express his displeasure. Neither rush to soothe him. Instead, their eyes drift closed and they listen to the subtle intricacies of the sound._

_Gaster is the first to smile. “Sans.” he murmurs, eyes warm as they open and unbruised hand coming up to smooth over the babysoft skull of their fragile little son. “Comic Sans, to be precise.”_

_“Sans.” She repeats with a wide grin. Later, when they learn of his poor health, she’ll repeat his name in a sob, mournful of the difficult life her frail child will live. “Sans, Sans, Sans,” she’ll cry. “Sans, my baby, Sans…”_

_And, together, both parents will think, ‘Oh, what a tragedy.’_

_Neither will last long enough to see that thought come to define their child._

_Their poor, tragic little Sans, who would one day bring tears to the eyes of everyone he ever loved._

* * *

 

Their child never got the chance to cry.

So Geno cried for them. He cried and cried and cried to replace every tear his lost little love never got to shed and cried more in honor of the wail of life his baby never got to sob. Geno cried, cried, cried and has never truly stopped. Couldn’t stop, you must understand. Not when the pain never faded and his aching heart never healed. He just kept crying and crying and crying, for that was all he could do. The endless tears are what he deserved. 

Despite all his pain and all the tears he himself cried for their little one, despite his anger and the hatred he formed to cover his heartbreak, Geno has _never_ wanted his love to be the one to sob in their little one’s place. He has _never_ desired to see sadness pour from dark eyes like rainfall from a midnight sky, or to hear the wails of anguish that so often left his own mouth leave his love’s parted teeth. Reaper left him—or so he thought—but tears have never suited the elder god and Geno’s heart has always ached at the sight of them.

Geno feels that ache now.

As Reaper screams his sorrow to the sky above Tragedy’s graveyard and releases all the torment he cannot fit into the sound as tears, Geno’s chest aches and he finds his own gasping sobs slowing, though ‘slowing’ does not mean his own tears end. No, they continue. Fast and silent, they run down his face and through his mask like little streams that end as waterfalls, but he ignores them. 

It is easy to ignore that of which you are accustomed to, especially when a distraction is near.

For Geno, that distraction is that ache in his chest so different than the one he is used to and the yearning to soothe the one who causes it, so while his tears drip, drip, drip, he gently lifts the child between them into his arms and stands.

‘My apologies, little one,’ he thinks, for he has no strength to speak without a warble in his voice. ‘Please, rest here for now and I promise I will aid you soon.’

They have no life within them to offer him a response, so he continues forward until he stands before a cloth covered table that he sets them upon. There are rails that rise and fall like those of a crib, so he pulls them up and drags a white sheet over the still form. They will forever be cold but, now, they will be protected from the open air. The little thing deserves that much as they wait for his selfishness to end. 

With them secured, he returns to his love and reaches out with a single hand, like his husband once reached out to him when he sat upon the ground with tears staining his face. His hand shakes with nerves as it hovers before Reaper and he worries it will be left with nothing but air in its grasp—he would deserve no less—but the worry barely has time to settle before cool fingers slide against his. 

“Ge..Geno,” Reaper chokes, staring up at him with a pained regret so vivid Geno feels it as his own, “G-Geno, Geno, Geno.”

“H-hush,” he soothes, “hush, you f-foolish, foolish god, a-and rise. I cannot p-pull you to y-your feet.”

Reaper’s hand tightens, “D-don’t...p-please don’t m-make me leave. I...I’m sorry,” he sobs, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry b-but _please_ d-don’t make me leave. Please, p-please, plea-”

“I said _hush.”_ his heart does not ache now. Instead, the small remains shatter all over again. Reaper has never sounded so desperate. “I cannot...I can’t lift you, love. I just need you to rise.”

The endearment must calm the taller god’s worries because he nods and shakily rises into the air. He isn’t standing, but he’s lighter now with his power active and easy to pull. “Geno, Geno, Geno…” he continues to cry, apologies worming their way between calls of his name. “Geno, Geno, Geno.”

His chosen name echoes throughout the graveyard every time it is chanted, but he can’t bring himself to silence Reaper a third time. Instead, he holds his hand tight and thinks of the house that has managed to become a home in spite of all his yearning for the one he knew so many years ago. 

Just as the first syllable of his name forms, the world around them shifts and the second half of his name sounds as a sob when Reaper sees his room and cries, “-no.”

The pots hosting new plants, the bookshelf in the corner, the now faded yellow curtains...they stand out alongside various bits of clutter as remnants of their past together. A rug from their living room, a chair from the kitchen pushed into the corner...and, most notable of all:

In the corner, wedged between two shelves, a crooked picture frame with ugly little stars that hangs from the wall in a manner that keeps the front faced away. Reaper knows that frame well. Geno knows that he does.

The older god carved it to hold their wedding photo.

Reaper’s apologies come faster and faster until the words break free so close together that no room for air is left between. He’s so, so sorry he wails, sockets so tormented for eyes used to hiding his soul from the world. 

Gently, Geno guides him to his bed and coaxes him into settling down. When Reaper refuses to let go of his hand and desperately tugs him closer then down, he follows. The bed is made for one but Geno is small and once grew used to fitting onto his husband’s lap and into his arms; like a puzzle piece finally finding where it belongs.

“Geno, Geno, Geno…”

After all these years, he finds he still fits.

“Geno, Geno, Geno…”

Behind his mask, Geno closes his eye and leans into his husband’s warmth. He feels the shaking of Reaper’s sobs and the mantra of his name and hears the ache of his love’s heart in the way his soul pulses beneath his ear. He hears and feels this all and let’s his own pain return. Sobs and wails and mantras of his own escape his mouth to match the other’s pained song and the rivers running down both their faces.

“Geno, Geno, Geno…”

Together, they cry.

“Reaper, Reaper, Reaper…”

Together, they mourn.

_“I’m sorry.”_ They sob.

 Together, for the first time in nearly a century,…

_“I’m so, so sorry.”_

...they begin to heal.

* * *

 

Reaper has gone so long without sunshine cradled in his arms that the sudden emptiness in his embrace should not startle him awake. 

But it does. 

Every night leading to the century that nears has been spent longing for the warmth special to his thought-to-be lost love. He has begged for the return of that warmth, he has mourned it, and many restless nights passed him by as he dreamed of it. When he exhausts himself to sleep with tears drying on his face and his thought-to-be lost love finally, finally, _finally_ , in his arms again, the sleepy, half conscious realization he has a mere hour later that he is cold is so jarring it jerks him awake. _Being cold means he is alone._

For a heart stopping moment, he thinks he merely had yet another dream. No, not a dream. A nightmare, because no amount of happiness can erase the heaviness of his heart. No joy is bright enough to fill the freshly carved hole shaped like a tiny soul he only just learned of.

‘Geno…’ He wants to cry again. In relief for the starlight he did not lose. In heartbreak for the sunshine he did not gain. Was none of it true?

Then, he sees the room he is in and, still, he wishes to cry. In relief for the sunshine he found. In heartbreak for the starlight he lost. It was all true. Real.

But where is Geno? Where is his love?

Has…has Geno left him? Abandoned him as Reaper abandoned h—  

And then he hears it.

Singing.

_“I’m washing the dishes~ they’re soaking in soapy water like...soapy fishes~ bada da da da~”_

_His laughter gives away his hiding place and Geno whirls around with a furious blush spreading across his skull. Ah, it’s the lovely shade of pink he favors: embarrassment. “R-Reaper!”_

_“Geno~” he sings back, smiling, “performing for the kitchen appliances, I see. Care for a duet? Ah, but I’m afraid I don’t know the words to the masterpiece you were singing. Something about dishes and fishes? Do the fishes have wishes?”_

_The pink darkens into a charming hue. Less of a bubblegum and more of a rose. “Do you have to tease me every time, you ass?” Geno grumbles. This isn’t the first time he’s been caught making up nonsense to whatever tune was bopping in his skull. “You know I’m not good at rhyming.”_

_That’s true. Geno was a skilled writer, but poetry and anything related seemed to escape his capabilities. “You make the cutest expression whenever I d—there it is!” Pout deepening, Geno turned away with a huff and continued his chore. Grinning, he merely drifted over and slid his arms around his love from behind. “You’re adorable when you sulk, darling, but don’t let my teasing stop your songs. Your voice is lovely.”_

_“Idiot.” Geno mumbled. A few minutes of silence later; however, he relaxed into Reaper’s embrace and slowly began to hum, then sing, “I’m washing the dishes~ they’re soaking in soapy water like soapy fishes~ bada da da da~ and~ ooooh~ the fishes have wishes~”_

_Smiling, Reaper held him tighter and closed his eyes to listen. In all honesty, Geno’s voice was terrible..._

“...But I always loved it.” He murmurs, eyes unglazing from the passing memory to find that he has been following the song. 

Unlike any of the ones he recalls, this one is unfamiliar. Slow and sad with no words to guide it along, just quiet vowels that cut through the silence eerily in a manner distant, whispered noises should be unable to do. It chills him in a way not many things do, but he keeps following.

Out his love’s room, down a short hall, and to the back of Geno’s small home he goes until he reaches a door. It looks like it should lead outside.

It doesn’t.

Not to _their_ outside, at least. The upper realm is creeping into dusk with every passing minute, yet the sky on the other side of the door is bright and blue; perfect, almost, if it were not for the mass of graves sitting beneath it.

Reaper does not fear graveyards. He is the reason for them, after all.

But he knows what those graves keep.

He suspects what one in particular holds.

But Geno’s wordless song is louder now and he cannot let uneasiness stall him any longer than it has for the few seconds he paused to stare. He can’t afford to turn and run, no matter how great the desire to do so is. So he steels himself and walks through the door.

As he trails after the sound of his once lost husband’s voice, he tries not to let any of the graves catch his eye, but fails. None of them are marked with names but not a single one is left bare. Flowers, stars, what seems to be quotes from books...every grave marker has something carved deep into the stone. Even when the numbers climb from one to the hundreds, he finds that not a single one has been left without a mark of some sort. When he reaches half a thousand, this saddens him more than it leaves him impressed. Stone work is no quick art…

...and he can see the skill that increases with every stone.

‘You’ve practiced quite a bit, haven’t you, sunshine?’ He tries not to wonder which of the crude ones he passed was their little one’s. 

A hiccup breaks up the smooth song directing him to his love and he quickens his speed. Geno’s voice cracks often as he sings, but that has always been due to his lack of talent, never tears. Then again, ‘always’ was years ago, so who was he to assume what the changes of Geno’s voice meant? Who was he to Geno, but the man who left his love behind?

When a quiet whimper interrupts moments later, he speeds up again.

He may be the lowest of the low in his love’s eyes, but Geno was the world in his own and he would not leave him to cry alone in this bright yet cold place. 

Thankfully, the small god’s song doesn’t fail no matter what sounds break it apart and, soon enough, Reaper comes across a small form draped in red kneeling on the ground; digging.

He wants to rush over.

He doesn’t. As Geno stated when trying to run him off: interfering with a god’s work is no small crime and Geno was clearing performing his duties as a god now. As _Tragedy._

To think his little unknown was someone with a name so sad…

Reaper thinks back to the maids from two short days ago and their gossip. The things he recalled them saying brings a frown to his face that only grows when he sifts through the little ‘facts’ he spent the morning after their thought-to-be first meeting learning about the younger god. 

...and with a reputation so _horrid._

Child eater.

Blood bather.

Savage.

Lower realm _scum._

There was nothing kind to be said about Tragedy. About _Geno._ Not from the lower rankings, the middle, high, or even the king. Stars, even kind, sweet Life who was once _his_ kind, sweet Tori seemed displeased when he mentioned his love’s name, though he hadn’t known that was Geno’s name at the time. How did he learn it? Geno had been an unknown. How did that change? 

...And who brought him into his hateful, poisonous realm? Who dared to drag _his_ sunshine to the higher realm where cruelty awaited him like storms clouds ready to drown out the sun?

Unbidden, a growl rumbles within his chest. 

The singing stops

“...Reaper.” Geno murmurs, turned away as he continues digging. With the acknowledgement of his presence, he drifts closer and finds that the smaller god is without a shovel or any kind of tool meant to aid his task. Instead, bloodied fingers dig into the ground. When Reaper startles and steps forward, one of the hands raised in a halting motion. “Leave it, Reaper.”

“Ge-”

“Leave it,” Geno insists, “at least until I’m done.”

He doesn’t want to.

But he does.

In silence, Geno digs a little longer. Reaper watches, unsure of what to say or do. He wants to stay close but, morbidly, he is curious, even if that curiosity discomforts him when Geno’s digging stops and the smaller god reaches over for the small wrapped form he failed to notice until now. “...Why are you doing this?” He questions once the infant is lowered. “Why did you take the child, Geno? Why did you take _all_ these children? Is it…?”

Although he flinches, Geno’s work doesn’t pause. Instead, he gathers the flowers piled at his side and starts to sprinkle them into the grave like a rainbow shower. Eventually, he replies, “It isn’t about them, Reaper. Not...not anymore.”

“...But it was, once.”

“Once,” Geno agrees, “but not for a long time. Not now. I…” he laughs, though both know there is nothing to laugh about. “I tried to stop once I realized how many people I was hurting, but I couldn’t. By then, it became a...a _thing._ A compulsion, almost.”

“A calling.” He supplies, slowly lowering himself next to his love. He doesn’t dare touch the beautiful grass Geno himself rests upon. “Like the souls that call to me until I reap them, the,” corpses feels wrong, “children call to you.”

But Geno shakes his head. “Not...not just children, though the need to go to them is the greatest. It’s the elderly, adults, teenagers...it’s everyone, Reaper.”

“But you only take the children.”

Ashamed, Geno nods this time. “I do.” The smaller god must hear something in the silence, because his head tilts in Reaper’s direction. “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t.” He has no reason to lie. No desire to either. “It’s part of your duty, correct? As Tragedy.” The name rolls off his tongue so oddly. Just a day ago it was fine, but now it grates against the names he knows his love by: Geno, sunshine, darling… Tragedy fits oddly, like it isn’t meant to fit at all, but also as if it were something always missing from the list. “I don’t know what that duty entitles, Geno. I don’t know who you are beyond my lost unknown or what you are beyond a genre for plays.”

But he can guess. Bits and pieces from their years together are already coming together to solve the question with an answer that now seems so clear.

Geno doesn’t leave him to his assumptions alone, however. “Tragedy,” the way he says his own name is foul, like the words have spoiled and left a terrible taste he must spit from his mouth. “It’s a word with a broad meaning, don’t you think? Sorrow, misery, misfortune, disaster...these are all words people pair with my name, but it still means so _much._ Heartbreak is a tragedy. Bankruptcy is a tragedy. Rape is roped in with a pet running away and murder is grouped with having a car stolen. A tragedy can mean anything that brings misery but, usually, tragedy means _death,_ I’ve come to learn.”

“Tragedy and Death are often intertwined…” He quotes softly.

He hates the mask strapped to Geno’s head and the way it hides whatever expression pairs with the quiet, broken chuckle he hears. “We’ve gone hand in hand long before we wedded, apparently.”

“But what does that have to do with the children?” Why he wishes to know so badly, he isn’t sure. Maybe it the lingering pain in his chest from losing their own little one. Maybe the rumors are true and he is cold and cruel and his interest stems from a lack of caring. Maybe he just needs to hear his Geno’s voice. He doesn’t know which it is. One? All? “I...I don’t understand. Why would you be compelled to steal away the little ones?”

“You saw the woman today. The _mother,”_ despite the hate in the word, the grave is being filled by gentle hands, “who didn’t want her child. Who _murdered_ them because of the responsibility _she_ could not shoulder. She won’t miss them.”

“But what if others do?”

“That’s just it,” Geno’s voice cracks and his aching heart twists, “others _will._ Their father, their grandparents, a brother, a cousin...someone will miss them and they will look. They will look for them for days, for years, for the rest of their lives, but they will never find the child who went missing from their crib. No body. Nothing. And do you know what’ll it’ll be called? Do you know what they’ll call the event of the little one who was never seen again?”

He does. “A tragedy.” 

What is meant to be a bitter laugh comes as a sob. “Some I bury because no one else will. Because they are abandoned and left to be forgotten and they...they don’t deserve that. These kind, young souls don’t deserve piles of trash and cold alleyways, so I take them and I wrap them and I sing to them in their final sleep. Most, I take because my very core urges me to. _Take them, take them, take them,_ something whispers and I...I _have to._ I have to because someone will miss them and mourn them and the tragedy of the loss will spread. It’s always worse with children, so it’s always, always, _always_ children I take.”

There is nothing left of the hole needing to be filled, but Geno’s restless, bloody hands continue to comb over the dirt. “Geno…”

“I lost our child.” Trembling, Geno whimpers the words in a manner that makes them sound like an apology. It is one, in a way. “I lost us our child and now I spend my time making others lose theirs. Not just children, either. Everyone was someone’s child once and I tear them from their parent’s in horrible ways _every day._ I break families. I start them in terrible ways. I,” the words rip out from a tight, raw throat, “I killed our baby. I brought ruin to our family just as I bring ruin to _everything_ I touch.”

“You don’t have my hands, love.” He whispers. “You aren’t the very thing that stole away our precious one. You aren’t _Death._ I am.”

Pushing away from the grave, Geno whips around to face him with his painted, sobbing stare. “I push people into your hands! I...I _call_ you to souls. I’m responsible for the jobs you hate the most—for the little ones and victims you despise taking! You bring people peace, Reaps. I...I...I…” When his arms open, Geno falls forward like a puppet with strings too frayed to support its weight any longer. “I only make people suffer. I lost our child—our _baby—_ and I torment you with your own work! I,” sobbing, the smaller god clutches at his cloak, “I’m responsible for losing every family I ever had. I...I...”

He’s a monster, many of the rumors said.

“I hate it,” Geno cries, “I hate who I am. I hate _what_ I am.” _I hate myself._

Truthfully, Geno has always been victim. A victim of cruel, uncaring Fate.

And as he holds his sobbing lover, Reaper finds a little bit of Geno’s self hatred stewing inside of himself for the next thing he thinks:

‘How sad is it that one of Tragedy’s greatest tragedies is the very life he lives?” Carefully, he tightens his arms around his love. “Is your work here done, little godling?”

Upset brings a stutter to the younger god’s words. “Yes,” he tries to say but the first letter skips so he resorts to nodding instead, masked face still hidden in black robes and smaller fingers creaking with the strength of his clinging.

Reaper glances at the gravemarker and takes note of the little clouds across it. Precarved? He wants to ask. He wants, no, he needs to know which marks to look for to find their child so that he may whisper his apologies and love to the stone. 

Now is not the time for questions though. As much and as fiercely as he loves the little one he learned of today, the truth of the matter is that they have no need for his comfort where they rest now. Unlike their mother, they are at peace and will remain as such until and even after their father is able to visit.

For now, he lowers his mouth to Geno’s would-be ear and softly questions, “Will you accept my aid, dear one?” _Will you still let me help you, even after all these years?_

Miraculously, Geno nods. When he kneels to gather his limp, tearful love into his arms, the smaller god offers no resistance and instead curls into his hold, sniffling as he seeks out the crook of Reaper’s neck to hide where he always hid before when upset. 

Hold gentle yet secure, he turns to carry his precious burden back to the strange door that will return them to the little god’s home.

Roses, swirls, candy canes…. Silently, he looks at the symbols on the stones and watches the masterful carvings slowly dwindle in skill. Waves, stars, what might have been a lion or bear…. Nonsense symbols carved in jagged, rough scribbles….

Finally, the door.

“Where do I take you, darling?” 

Without looking, Geno raises a hand and points. There is only one door on the wall his finger leads to so it is that door Reaper opens. Unsurprisingly, it is the bedroom he assumes to be his love’s. The one that contains the pieces of their past scattered about. “Have you a basin? A cleaning cloth?” Carefully, he attempts to set Geno down upon the bed. “Bandages?”

Geno nods but refuses to let him go to fetch the items. “S-stay.”   

“I will stay as long as you allow me to, my love.” If Geno will still have him after his sins, then he will stay. Stars, he _wants_ to stay… “Your fingers need to be cared for though, darling. Let me do so. It’ll only take a moment to gather what I need.”

But Geno won’t let him go. Reaper is deaf to whatever thoughts run amuck in the safe privacy of his sunshine’s mind, but he guesses at the words Geno’s fearful, clingy silence hides: _If I release you, will you return?_

Geno is afraid and it is Reaper who placed that fear within him. Understanding that, he chooses to sit on the bed and places his love on his lap instead of pushing for Geno to let him go. The younger god relaxes further into his embrace, and it eases something within him he didn’t know was wound tight until that moment. Lingering fears that this is all a cruel dream fade. Geno smells like dirt and salt and is so, so _warm._ He is real, and the longer he holds him, the more that sinks in. His love is _real_ and _alive._

And so very, very wounded. In more ways than one. “Can I see your hands, sunshine?”

When they lift, Reaper finds that what he thought was dirtied white bone are actually dirty white gloves covering the small, delicate hands he takes in his own. Brushing a bit of dirt away with his thumb, he looks over the bleached leather and tries to maintain the gentle smile he wears when he finds the tears at the end of each fingertip. As fine as the gloves look like they once were, they are old and torn and marrow bleeds from the fingertips peaking through the holes that failed to protect the bone.

“You can remove them…” Geno murmurs when he thumbs at where the gloves rest around his wrist.

With permission granted, he does. Some of the dirt has made it through, but he is pleased to find the wounds seem to be minor. The blood leaking into the gloves must have made the cuts look worse. 

Still, the dirt needs to go.

Looking around, he catches sight of a pitcher resting on the bedside table. Plastic, so it won’t shatter if it ever falls. Reaching out, he lifts the lid and dips the hem of a sleeve into the water, thankful for the excess length of the clothing he prefers to wear and the way it so easily takes up the task of a rag. “Let me just...” lightly gripping one hand, he starts cleaning the first of ten wounded fingers. It’s not a difficult task at all. Geno is still and patient and Reaper finishes up within moments. “...there, that’s better, isn’t it?”

Geno’s reply comes as a soft, startled gasp. Breathy yet surprised.

It takes Reaper much longer than it should to realize _why._

Eyes wide, he lets the hand curled around Geno’s wrist drop, an apology on the tip of his tongue for the instinctive way he unthinkingly brushed his teeth against the smaller skeleton’s finger tips. “Geno, I—” 

Those very same fingertips press against his worried grin, silencing him near instantly. “It’s,” Geno has to stop and swallow when his voice breaks, “okay. I...it’s okay. You…” _didn’t mean to._

He didn’t, but his teeth tingle beneath the fingers keeping him quiet all the same. When they pull away, allowing him to speak, he rasps the truth, “I never imagined kissing your hand when I thought of you all these years.”

Geno’s breath hitches. “Reaper...”

“It was always your smile.” The admission hurts, because he knows now that Geno did not smile at their reunion. Reaper hadn’t given him a reason to. “I missed your smile most of all, so I used to close my eyes and picture how lovely it would be to capture it with my own. One more time, I’d plea. If you were going to be taken from me, then at least let it be after one more kiss. One more sweet goodbye to send you to your eternal rest with.” 

“I didn’t die.” Geno reminds him, the words strained with tears he can’t see.

His own are visible. “I didn’t know. I thought it was _you,_ sunshine. Stars, I thought it was you who passed that night.”

When Geno whispers “I wish it was,” his heart somehow finds enough pieces left whole enough to break.

“Sunshine.” his tone is pleading, but he isn’t sure what to beg for. Please don’t say that? Please don’t even think it? If Reaper had been offered the chance to give his own life for his child…. “I’m so sorry I left you alone.” It’s all he can think to say. “I should have waited for you longer. I should have-”

“Y-you waited?” Surprise. Geno is _surprised._

How is it that the pain within his chest continues to deepen with no end to his torment in sight? What of his heart is even left to shatter? “Of course I waited! I...stars, Geno, I thought you were dead. _I thought you were dead,_ but I _hoped_ you weren’t. ‘He’ll be home any minute now’ I told myself. I told myself that for _hours_ but you...you never showed up, Geno, and I-” he was a fool, “I left. I thought I was fooling myself into thinking you were alive but I tricked myself into thinking you were dead instead and I fucking _left you_ because of my own damn idiocy. Stars, I...I could have missed you by a _minute._ I should ha-”

Trembling hands lift to cup his face and his blabbering ends just like that. “I...I t-thought you left me.”

“I did.” Stars, he _did_ leave Geno. 

“I-if...if y-you knew I w-was—” Unable to finish, the smaller god whines; high and sharp like a wounded animal’s cry.

Shakily, his own hands come up to rest over the ones belonging to his poor, sobbing love. He knows how to piece together Geno’s fears, so he finishes the broken sentence for him. “If I knew you were alive, I _never_ would have left you, Geno.”

“E-even though I...I…” _lost our child?_

With no mask of his own to hide behind, there is nothing to disguise the honesty in his sad, dripping eyes. “I don’t blame you, Geno. I don’t blame you now and I wouldn’t have blamed you back then either. Sunshine, _nothing would have made me leave you_ had I known you were alive. I would have stayed. I _should_ have stayed. Stars, I spent a century mourning the death that never was while you were left alone, abandoned, to mourn our little one. I…” he can’t say it enough, “I’m sorry, sunshine. Fuck, I’m so, so sorry.”

Geno, already in hysterics, gasps out a single cry of “Reaper” before he throws his arms around him and _wails._

How often will they cry? The process has started, but how many tears will it take for their wounds to heal?

They’ll just have to find out, he supposes. 

Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, special thanks to TKWolf45 for being amazing and supporting me through my mind being mean and not wanting me to write. Kisses, darling <3 You're amazing for getting such a long chapter of Simple out today (and just amazing)!
> 
> Some more insight into Geno's job! Yay! I've been excited to talk more about him taking children~
> 
> Also: If you missed the notes at the beginning: Please check out the link to a beautiful piece of Glimpse AU torture onlyplatonicrl wrote. It made me cry:)


	9. Call My Name to Call Me Home (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death and Tragedy so often intertwine...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little heated!

_ Gentle fingers brush under his socket. Instinctively, his eye flutters shut at the ticklish sensation of the feather light touch. Before it can blink back open, the fingers pull back to make room for the soft kiss his lover presses just at the corner of his eye.  _

_ “Beautiful.” Reaper whispers against his skull. _

_ The honesty in the compliment flusters him. “I’m not.” Self consciously, his hand raises to his other socket, the glitches that obstruct his right eye blinking out of existence the moment his palm presses over the mess it hides. “I’m not,” he repeats, softer; sadder. _

_ When a cool hand slides over his warmer one and a silent question enters the space between them, he clenches his eye shut tighter and responds to the questioning gaze he cannot see with a slow nod. Fingers curling, Reaper takes hold of his hand and slowly pulls it away, his hold adjusting as he does so, so that their phalanges intertwine.  _

_ For a long moment, the older god utters nothing aside from a small gasp. “Oh Sunshine,” Reaper breathes, and while it doesn’t sound like the pity or horror he’s used to, Geno cannot help but tense in preparation for the disgust he knows will follo— “I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see your eye. Stars, you’re stunning.” _

_ Humiliation colors him red. There’s nothing attractive about his melted eye, he knows. Reaper’s mockery is cruel.“Stop teasing…” _

_ “Teasing?” Fingers return to his face, this time tracing the drip-like scars beneath his right eye. His vision is poorer in that socket, but the blurriness isn’t enough to hide the earnest expression his love wears. “I may often poke fun at you to earn your adorable ire, but no teasing or lies fall from my mouth when I say  _ you are beautiful.”

_ He doesn’t quite believe him—he may never—but there is no hesitation in his lover’s movements when Reaper leans forward to press his grin to his ugly, dripping socket. No hesitation, no disgust… _

_ Just more of that heartwarming honesty that always coats Reaper’s voice whenever he speaks to Geno. “I love you.” _

_ The words are still new enough that he can’t help but shy away from them. “I-idiot.” Before his love’s expression can fall, he presses his face into the god’s robes and stutters, “I...I l-love you t-too.” _

_ Reaper’s responding laugh is bright. According to the taller skeleton himself, those are his favorite words to hear from Geno. “Say it again?” he pleads, arms circling Geno’s waist to hold him close. “Just one more time?” _

_ “I l-love you.” _

_ “Again?” _

_ “Y-you said one more time!” _

_ But when Reaper coaxes him out of hiding and smiles down at him with an expression full of nothing but  _ love,  _ Geno finds that he can’t deny the request. “I love you.” _

_ “Again.” _

_ “I love you.” _

_ “Again~” _

_ “Say it back first, fuc-!” _

_ A kiss brings his insult to an end. Once he’s left panting in his lover’s arms, Reaper pulls away with a wide, joyful grin that only brightens his glowing face as he exclaims, “I love you too, Sunshine.” _

_ Geno wants to wrap himself in those words and carry them around everywhere he goes. He’ll settle for imprinting them on his heart instead. “Again.” he demands with a smile cheekier than it is shy. _

_ Reaper laughs and complies. “I—”   _

“—love you.” Reaper whispers, unaware that Geno has been drifting further and further from sleep as the dawn began trickling in. Bold with his assumption that any words he presses into the back of Geno’s skull will go unheard, Reaper continues murmuring, “I love you, sunshine, and I hope that, one day, you’ll deem me worthy of the return of your affections.”

‘Return…?’ He’s drowsy, exhausted in only the way a night full of tears can manage, so the realization of just what that means takes awhile to sink in.

Reaper thinks Geno doesn’t love him.

Barely three days ago, vindictiveness alone would have led Geno to spitting out denials about his feelings for his estranged husband. Even now, wrapped in his arms as he uses the taller in place of a mattress, there is an instinct born from a century of stewing in betrayal that urges him to tear himself away and shout “No! No I do not and will not ever love you,” despite the knowledge that he doesn’t mean it. He wanted to, these last hundred years. Stars, he wanted nothing more than for his lies to be truths whenever he told himself he had no love for the god who left him behind; sad and alone and  _ broken,  _ but his words always, always,  _ always  _ rang false. 

He loved Reaper.

He  _ loves  _ Reaper.

It’s shown in the mug he keeps hidden in his cabinet, the robe tucked deep into his closet, and the way he always stocks his kitchen with coffee despite how he can no longer bear the taste without crying. More evidence is strewn all over his home but the most damning of it all is how he hears Reaper’s love and feels  _ warmth.  _ How his exhaustion of many types all seems to lessen the slightest because Reaper loves him and, while it doesn’t fix much of anything, it makes him happy. For the first time in years,  _ Geno is happy,  _ even if it’s still tainted by sadness.

They need to talk, he knows. More than they already have through bouts of crying and their stuttering, gasping wails. A day or so of tearful confessions isn’t enough to close the gap of a century.

But, for now, it’s  _ enough. _

Turning in the safe, protective circle of his husband’s arms until their fronts are pressed together, Geno set his chin on Reaper’s sternum and gazes at him through the eyes of his mask. At the first sign of movement, the taller skeleton went silent, but a panicked look lingers in his eyes as Reaper meets his hidden stare; fearful that Geno may have heard the words he spoke. 

Thinking back to what he recalls of the dreamed memory he had, Geno quietly demands, “Again,” though he is unsure if Reaper will know the reference. 

Breath hitching and sockets widening, Reaper shakily obeys his pleading demand and whispers, “I...I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.” 

“Say it back first, sunshine.” The other demands, dropping the insult Geno always threw onto the end of his sentences in favor of Reaper’s favorite name for him. The older god is smiling, but it’s hesitant. Fear hides behind the wobbling curve of his mouth and when Geno’s silence goes on too long, the frightened emotion becomes clearer and clearer. He truly thinks Geno has lost his affections. Eyes averted, Reaper begs, “S-say...say it back first.”

The words should stall on cobwebs and dust from the century of disuse they sat through. Prying open his heart to free them should be as difficult as coaxing metal doors long since rusted shut open.

But they don’t.

And it isn’t. 

His heart opens and the words fly free; the taste of sugar left behind on his tongue with the sweetness of the sentence as he breathes, 

“I love you too.”

* * *

 

_ As cutesy as he tends to make it sound by referring to Geno’s stalking habits as the younger god playing at being a duckling, Reaper can’t deny that the stalking is still, well, actual stalking. There’s no malicious intent behind it though, so he finds the cup sitting on the table between them more amusing than unnerving when a sip of the contents revealed it to be full of his favorite flavor and blend of coffee. A sample of the box of chocolates next to it proves that they’re also his favorite; a rich, dark truffle that compliments the coffee lingering on his taste buds well.  _

_ What a good stalker his duckling must be to get both right. _

_ Speaking of Geno… _

_ Lifting his gaze from the gifts set before him, Reaper raised a brow and leaned forward to prop his chin up on a palm as he shot the adorable unknown an amused smile. “Coffee and chocolate? If I didn’t know better, then I’d think this was a date, little duckling.” _

_ Flushing, Geno broke their eye contact by turning his head. “I...i-it’s not-! I...I mean… I, um, I g-guess it kind of is…” At his surprised expression, the smaller skeleton flusters more and meekly questions, “Would that be so bad?” _

_ “Considering the fact we’ve been dating for months now? No, darling, this being a date wouldn’t be bad at all.” Just surprising. His sunshine wasn’t one to take the initiative in planning these things. And the gifts… Aw, he got Reaper things because this was a  _ date.  _ He was being romanced! Adorable. “Is there any particular reason you wanted to go out? I thought we had dinner planned for the upcoming weekend?” _

_ Geno’s nervous smile turned frigid. “That was last weekend.” _

_ “What? No, that can’t be right. I was working last- oh.” Shit, he did it again. “I...I’m sorry, sunshine.” _

_ The ice in Geno’s smile melted into something resigned. “Your work keeps you busy. I know that. I just, uh, it was…” downtrodden, the smaller god looked away and quietly informed him of just which date he missed. “It was our anniversary.” _

_ Shit. _

_ Shit. _

_ Shit. _

_ “Geno-” _

_ “It’s okay.” Geno looks so sad though, so clearly it’s not. “Like I said, Reaper, your work keeps you busy. I just...I…” Looking down, the smaller, unknown god sighed and shot the table a helpless look. “I had something to say but, um, I haven’t seen you around to be able to say it. I caught you today by chance and had time to get those,” he waved at the gifts, “but...I...I don’t know. Maybe I should wait…” Quieter, he whispers, “M-maybe it’s pointless.” _

_ He doesn’t say it, but Reaper’s terrified that Geno may be thinking it: Maybe  _ this  _ is pointless. This relationship.  _

_ Throat suddenly dry, he curls a hand around the coffee and downs nearly the entire thing like one may a shot of alcohol. “I...I’m  _ sorry,  _ Geno. Shit, there’s no excuse for forgetting an anniversary. Did...did you wait long?” _

_ The way Geno won’t meet his gaze tells him Geno didn’t just wait a long time for him to show. He waited all the way up until the restaurant closed. “It was just for six months. It’s fine.” _

_ “It’s not,” he argues, “Genocide, I told you I would be there so I should have been. And just six months? It’s  _ more  _ than that. It’s a celebration of our-” he wants to say love, but they haven’t gotten around to that admission yet, so he settles for, “affections for one another. It could have been a date to celebrate a single month and it still would have been important. I shouldn’t have missed it, Geno. I understand if you’re upset with me. I just...shit, I’m so-” _

_ “I think I’m in love with you!” Geno blurts, cutting him off with the confession he spewed. Eye wide in horror, he rushes to continue speaking before Reaper’s surprise even has time to settle into elevation. “I...I m-mean-! I, uh, I do. N-no, that’s not right. I mean I  _ am. _ I-in love with you, t-that is. I think. N-no, no, no. I...I’m sure. I wanted to tell y-you during our dinner but, uh, you didn’t show so I...I thought-!” Covering his face with his hands to hide his mortification, the smaller god groaned. “I...I’m sorry.”  _

_ “I’ve been in love with you since you dressed up as me for Halloween!” He exclaims, stumbling over the words in his haste to get them out as fast as he can. “Or, uh, that was when I realized it, at least. I...I think I’ve been in love with you for  _ years,  _ Geno.” _

_ It’s not a smooth confession. His words are sloppy and don’t hold an ounce of the romance Reaper catches glimpses of in the books Geno likes to read. _

_ But it must have been perfect, because when Geno’s hands fall from his face and he shyly meets Reaper’s eyes, the smile that spreads across his face is wide and bright and so, so  _ beautiful.

_ It’s the same smile he’ll wear every time Reaper says “I love you.” _

He doesn’t see that smile now but, stars, he wants to. _Needs_ to, if only to confirm that, yes, Geno loves him. _Still_ loves him, despite how little it is deserved. 

Uncertain of how receptive his love will be, he slowly pushes himself upwards so that he sits instead of lounging, Geno following the movement and rising as well to sit on his lap. When his head tilts, confused, Reaper lifts a hand and gently scrapes his finger against the smooth, painted mask constantly keeping his sunshine hidden.

He’s heard rumors of this mask, though he hadn’t known which god they were attached to at the t ime.  _ Whose  _ reputation they sullied with such cruel lies.

The older comments are faded and murky, but newer ones ring clear as he thinks back to the gossip he now knows shames his love.  _ “The child eater has a new trophy, they say; a mask made of his victims’ skin.”  _ What foolishness, he thinks. Geno’s mask looks nothing like skin.

Geno leans into the light touch when he traces the cheek and, briefly, Reaper wonders if he can feel his fingers through the mask. He knows from their lunch that it’s been charmed to allow water through, so the thought isn’t all that far fetched.  _ “No, no! It’s  _ bone,  _ I hear. Carved from skulls and bleached. A monstrous mask to hide the deformity of a monster.” _

In Geno’s case, monster meant more than an insult. Although a god now, his darling one was born a monster. The word names his race but so many say it and mean something cruel. Geno never liked the way what he was, was made into a word used to belittle and harm others. And to accuse a  _ skeleton  _ of carving the bone of another into a mask…? Fools, the lot of them.

“Why do you wear this…?” He murmurs, careful as he passes his finger over the eyes. Although it’s painted differently than the ones he’s seen, he recognizes the agony carved into the porcelain as—ah, well. “Tragedy.”

“Yes?” Geno questions, knowing that Reaper knows he’s aware the taller god was naming the mask, not Geno.

A slight humor enters his smile. He wishes he could enjoy the joke more, but he knows that, whatever the reason, there’s no  _ pleasant  _ excuse for the mask his love wears. “Tell me, if you’re willing to share. What brings you to hide yourself from the world?”

“...It’s surprising just how often you catch your reflection throughout the day. Even if you shatter the mirrors in your house, you find yourself meeting your eyes in windows, silverware...anything with a shine, really. I...I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand the sight of myself, so I hid. It’s quite convenient, you see. Sharing a name with a genre that comes with a mask attached to it. It meant that I could pass my hiding off under the guise of my name, not that it mattered, I soon came to learn. Plenty of others were more than willing to make my excuses for me.”

His face scrunches before he can shoo the reaction away. “Ge-“

“Yes,” Geno interrupts, “I know. Nasty rumors, aren’t they? I’m used to it though, love. There’s no need for your anger.”

He wants to laugh, so he does, Geno’s fond name clearing the path for the amused sound. “Hypocrite.” What could be mistaken for an insult is spoken too warmly to hurt. “I remember the expression you made the first time you caught wind of the rumors spoken about  _ me.  _ You were livid, darling. Seconds away from fighting a war against anyone who ever spoke my name poorly. You really ought to have expected that I would wish to do the same in  _ your _ honor, sunshine.”

For all he knows, Geno has changed from the little unknown he knew and loves into someone entirely different. He could be colder. Crueler, like the rumors say. A foul creature brought to their realm as a curse to the gods. A murderer who steals lives to fuel his disgusting glee. A mistake Fate was too prideful to cast aside. He could be anything the rumors make him out to be. 

And yet a swift tug that pulls the mask from his face reveals to Reaper that Geno is simply still  _ Geno. _

“Hello, Tragedy.” He whispers, smiling at the wide eyed surprise his love stares back with. 

Geno swallows, tears welling only in his undamaged eye as glitches slowly spot the air over his right. “Hello, Death.”

His eyes are sadder and exhaustion rings his sockets, but a small, hesitant smile pulls at the neutral line of his teeth and Reaper’s heart  _ aches  _ with just how pretty his Geno is.

Before the glitches can settle, he gently swipes his fingers through the buzzing white bits of broken code and moves his hand to shoo them away. Geno, as the one who summons them, is the only god between the two able to decide whether the glitching remains or not, but the broken code still fades as Reaper moves his hand, his love willing them away bit by bit until nothing obstructs his wounded eye.

“I used to wake up to this face every morning.” He breathes, sounding awed and more than a little tearful. Crying again? He’d call it pitiful if the tears filling his sockets weren’t from overwhelming joy. Thumbing the melted drips, he watches as Geno’s right socket tries to close but fails with the gap his wound leaves. Another might be unnerved, but Reaper merely smiles and admires his sunshine’s beauty. “The sunlight would paint your skull gold and you’d look like such an angel for the few precious moments of admiration I was allowed before the light hit your eyes. When that happened, your face always scrunched like the morning was some foul thing and you’d hide yourself as deep into my chest as you could go.”

As if Reaper’s trailing touch were an artist’s brush, pink spreads across Geno’s face; darker on his cheeks but a far cry from the deep red he knows his love is capable of blushing.

Another hand comes up, cupping the smaller skeleton’s face and he spends time tracing the darker splotches with both thumbs at once. 

He can’t get enough. Every second he spends gazing upon the face of the one he mourned feels like a mouthful of water being gifted to a man close to dying of thirst. It nourishes his wilted, broken heart and eases his dry throat so that compliments may fall from his mouth with little struggle. He ought to move slow, he knows. After all these years, he should savor the sight like that near dying man should sip as to not make himself sick. Slow, slow, slow, he tries to remind himself.  

But Reaper has spent a century without water and the soft, warm bone under his hands reminds him of just how close he came to withering away. 

Reaper is that man so close to death, and Geno, his love, is his well.

So he tips Geno’s head back.

And he  _ drinks. _

* * *

 

There are scents that people associate with coming home, such as the spices of a home cooked meal, the worn leather of a favored armchair, or the perfume of a lover. For Geno, home had smelled of old books and the lingering scent of coffee. 

Now, home didn’t have a scent. It had a taste. 

Cinnamon coffee.

The salt of tears.

And  _ Reaper. _

This was his house, his bedroom, but Geno was only just now coming home.

Sockets fluttering shut, he threw his arms around the taller skeleton’s neck and melted into the kiss they shared. At the first probing touch of a tongue against the seal of his teeth, Geno’s mouth had parted like the gates to heaven and he found himself lost in the divine sensation of a tongue stroking against his own. 

Stars, did he even remember how to  _ do  _ this?

The answer? Yes. As Reaper explored his cavern like a new lover learning the ins and outs of their darling, it soon became apparent that their bodies never quite forgot the lessons they spent many nights in the past committing to memory. 

“I know you.” Reaper pants, breaking away to whisper the words in elation. 

Chest rising and falling rapidly, Geno blinks the tears from his sockets and gasps, “I know you.”

A century. A century and, still, they knew the one they love.

Laughing breathlessly, the taller god dives back in. Reaper’s tongue presses firmly against his own and Geno, trembling, presses back. Slick and wet, yet so, so familiar, they move in a dance with steps that come naturally, if not a little slow in some places. Press, press back, stroke, stroke back, swirl… 

‘It’s too fast,’ Geno thinks, but he clutches at the robes over Reaper’s back and replaces the thought near instantly. Too fast? Knowingly or not, he has waited for this moment for a hundred years. Too fast, too soon...the words have no place in the intimate moment they share. “Please, Reaper,” he whimpers when his love pulls his tongue free from their dance, “please, please,  _ please!” _

There’s no question with his plea, but Reaper has always known him well. Cupping his face with trembling hands, the older god watches him with eyes that water but do not waver in the intent stare they gaze at him with. “Are you sure?”

He’s afraid. Geno hasn’t given himself away since the morning his husband unintentionally broke his heart. He feels old and worn and far from tempting with the way he can’t seem to stop sniffling with his tears, but, despite all that, he is sure. His heart aches for Reaper, but his body  _ yearns.  _

“Yes,” he promises, “Reaper, yes, I’m sure.”

There is little room to spare on his bed. Meant for one body and one body alone, the only reason they fit together on its surface now is because they share one space with the way he sits on his lover’s lap. 

Even if the bed could fit ten, Geno knows that Reaper wouldn’t let him go far. 

Tempting him into stillness with yet another kiss, Reaper’s gentle hands drop their cradling of his skull and lower instead to where his scarf sits around his neck. Just as he always used to be, he is careful as he unwinds the sentimental fabric and takes special care to place it somewhere safe before even daring to part open the matching robe Geno wears. 

“You wear bandages now?” Reaper murmurs, his mouth never straying far from Geno’s own. His smile tickles as it brushes against his chin, words being shaped into the bone as his love presses kiss after kiss to his chin, his cheeks, and wherever else he can reach without losing the easy return to Geno’s smile. “Isn’t it a bother to keep and clean them with how often you bleed?”

Speaking of his wound is far from romantic, but Geno melts all the same. It’s such a small change; a detail easily lost to the time they’ve been apart, yet Reaper still recalls that Geno never used to wear bandages beneath his clothing. 

“Better the hassle of hiding my wounds than dealing with the rumors seeing me bloody would birth.” He murmurs, shuddering when Reaper finds the tie and unravels the long strand of once-white cloth from around his rib cage. “T-they,” he gasps, arching into a sharp nip bitten into his neck, “t-they already think I...t-that I…”

He forgets his words when Reaper seeks out a spot on his vertebrae that never lost its sensitivity and  _ sucks. _ Judging by the smirk Geno can feel pressed against the bone, the other, taller god’s distraction is purposeful. 

The last few passes around his form are made difficult with the way blood glues the fabric of his bandages to his morbid cut. Various chips and cracks scattered across his rib cage offer little help, only causing the cloth to stick further as it snags on the unnatural dips in his ribs. Geno hates this part; always growing frustrated with his body’s troubles and simply ripping the bandage away, uncaring of what may tear.

Reaper; however, doesn’t lose his patience when dealing with the difficult wraps. Instead, he maneuvers the long strip out of cracks and unhooks every last portion from whatever jagged chip caught a hold of them. When sticky blood alone remains his last obstacle, he trails his teeth up and steals a kiss as he patiently peels the last of the cloth away.

“You’re just as beautiful as I remember.” Reaper praises, dropping the bandages off to the side and raking his eyes across Geno’s damaged form. Sluggish tears drip just a little faster when he blinks and Geno finds himself filled with the urge to rise up on his knees so that he may kiss the glittering blue drop away. “Stars, I envy those who were given the pleasure of looking upon your form when I so foolishly left you behind.”

At first, he is confused. Then, offense heats his voice. “I am  _ married!”  _ He snaps, rising up not to kiss away his love’s tears but to push at his shoulders harshly until he tumbles back against the bed. Loosened, his robe parts further and slides down his arms, magic flushed bones almost completely visible to Reaper’s eyes. Uncaring of his indecently, he drags a hand over his wet sockets before plucking at the belt his lover wears angrily. “There has been  _ no  _ others, you damn  _ fool  _ of a god!”

“I wouldn’t blame you if there was.” Reaper whispers, looking slightly afraid to move in fear of Geno’s ire bursting into a full blown rage. “I left you, darling, even if I didn’t mean to do so. You had no reason to uphold the vows I broke.”

“Idiot.” he hisses, jaw trembling as he moves his attentions to the rope around Reaper’s neck. “Love was reason enough. I...it wouldn’t have felt right. There’s been no one in my bed since you left, Reaper, and I’ve not warmed another’s. I...I…” warmth rushes down his face and he sinks down onto his husband’s lap once more, crying like he has so many times these last few days. “I  _ love  _ you, you stupid, stupid man. Believing that love unrequited did not mean it faded, or that my want for  _ you  _ lessened with time. If any had offered, I’d have turned them away. I... _ you  _ are my husband. I don’t- I-!”

When he falls into a stutter, Reaper pushes himself up and catches his face in another cradle, uncaring of the way his own loosened cloth slips off his shoulders. “Had I been able to touch another, I wouldn’t have had the want to do so.  _ You  _ are my husband, Geno, and it is you who I have yearned for since I thought you lost. It is you I love.”

“Reaper…” There’s so many words he could string together behind his husband’s name, but none come to mind.

Thankfully, his love was never one to struggle with running his mouth. “I lost us a century.” Reaper murmurs, regretful. “A hundred years full of experiences, gone, simply because of a misunderstanding I caused. Please, sunshine,” he begs, fingers trailing low, low,  _ low  _ to the pelvis pressed over his own; flushed, but not quite excited, “let me make up for it. Let me get us those moments back by making a century's worth of memories, starting  _ now.” _

When Reaper’s fingers skim right over where his opening would be, the magic in his pelvis reddens more and lightning shoots up and down his spine. His husband goes no further though, so he whimpers and presses back into the touch, gasping, “Please,” but meaning  _ yes. _

Reaper, hearing the unspoken word, surges forward and swallows the cry he makes when cool fingers scrape across his pelvis  _ hard. _

One hand rediscovers the intimate bones of his most intimate places while the other comes up to encircle his spine, dragging up the vertebrae in a way that draws out a high, embarrassing whine before his ribs end the path. Instead of trying to move higher, the hand comes down, then up, then down again, stimulating the stretch of bone like one might the fleshier areas that offer pleasure. On the third slide upwards, his spine is abandoned entirely in favor of the damage ribs the other decides to fondle. 

His injuries make him look fragile, he knows. In some ways, he is, but Geno has never broken beneath a touch that was too rough and Reaper has too much knowledge of his body to worry about shattering him now. The taller god’s thumb strikes across his bleeding wound like a match across rough paper and Geno moans just as magic comes to life all across his form.

Before Reaper’s eyes, red stretches from his knees to his neck, forming heavy breast, a soft stomach, and something special hidden between plush thighs. The sight of his body nearly startles him—stars, has he always looked like this, he wonders; flustered—but the expression Reaper makes…

Geno shivers, unable to feel all that self conscious with the way his love is staring at him with wide eyed, heated  _ awe. _

“Oh, sunshine.” The older god rasps, hands settling on Geno’s hips while his gaze lifts and falls rapidly, indecisive of where to settle when all the taller skeleton wants to do is look everywhere all at once. “You look...stars, I don’t have the words. You’re beautiful…” A hand slides up, cupping his breast and thumbing over a nipple that is quick to pebble.

Head tilting back, he moans, “R-Reaper…”

A mouth presses to the twin of the nub the taller god toys with, teeth parting to tongue at the flesh before widening to encase the whole of his nipple and  _ bite.  _ When Geno is too busy whimpering pleasantly to speak, Reaper kisses praise into the mark sunken into his breast. “Gorgeous.”

His mouth trails higher, kissing from the mark to where ecto fades to bone so that he can suck a mark into the ivory that will take days to fade. “Stunning. Absolutely stunning.”

Both hands grope at his chest, tugging out whimpers and moans and pleasured cries by squeezing the flesh and abusing his rosy buds into a state of tingling sensitivity. He’s always been sensitive there, but it’s worsened with just how long his body has gone untouched. By the time a third mark colors his neck, he’s squirming on Reaper’s lap desperately and begging for more, more,  _ more. _

When his hands slide over Reaper’s shoulders and his fingers curl,  _ digging  _ deep into the bone beneath them, Reaper growls and pushes his hips up; magic surging to life. 

“Reaper.” Geno moans, slick as he grinds down on the length. The name is all he’s able to manage, so he uses it to beg, “Reaper, Reaper,  _ Reaper.” _

A hand drops from his chest to slide between Geno’s thighs. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Reaper murmurs when he cries out in complaint at the phalanges sliding wetly between his lips. “Stars, Geno, you’re so wet…” A groan compliments his mew when a finger enters his heat, Reaper’s flattened palm adding to the pleasurable sensation by pressing into his clit. “Hot, too. Fuck, and  _ tight.” _

The angle has to be strange for him, but Reaper seems to have no difficulties in fingering his weeping sex, one testing finger quickly becoming two that stretch and curl to make way for a third. As he works Geno open for the length that throbs between them, a flustering mix of flattery and filth spills from his mouth; spoken in a voice that deepens with every clench around his pleasuring fingers. 

“I missed your noises,” Reaper growls into his neck in that deep, rumbling voice.

“Stars, you’re so beautiful. Both inside,” fingers curl, “and out.”

“Come on, sunshine, sing your pretty songs for me like you used to so long ago.” Is muttered into his cleavage when the third finger pushes inside.

He has to catch his tongue between his teeth in order to ground himself. It would be so, so easy to become lost in the new yet old sensations attempting to drown him, but he wants to remain aware. Wants to acknowledge the pleasure he enjoys. 

And, he’ll admit, a large part of Geno wants to pleasure the one pleasuring  _ him.  _

His fingers itch with the want so, a little uncertain, he curls his hand around the weeping member pressed against his husband’s stomach and strokes. 

“G-Geno!” Reaper stutters, groaning and thrusting up into his lover’s hand before he can stop himself. “F-fuck, Geno,  _ sunshine…!” _

“Does it feel good?” He questions, unsure, trying to recall just what his husband used to enjoy. Hopeful that what he remembers is correct, he slides his hand up to the head and twists, his palm grinding firmly before being smoothed down the length. Reaper  _ knees _ and his nerves relax, though Geno himself  _ can’t.  _ Not when dripping fingers search out the bundle of nerves within him and press insistently until he cries with the intense pleasure. “R-Reaper!  _ Reaper!” _

With a cursed that comes out as a moan, Reaper pulls his hand free and grips Geno by the hips tightly. Before he can aid his husband, the older god lifts and uses strength alone to hold Geno in the air, right over the flushed head of his cock. 

“Geno.” he growls, head tilted to meet his eyes. There’s a question in them that Geno, wet and wanting, wouldn’t dream of shaking his head to. “Sunshine.” Reaper breathes, slowly lowering him until Geno’s knees touch the bed and the very tip of his cock eases into the warmth of the smaller god. “Fuck, my beautiful, darling sunshine…”

Tears bead at the corners of his eye, born from the pain of being entered and spread far more widely than fingers alone could manage. Stars, it hurts, but it is a hurt born from love, so he winds his arms around Reaper’s neck and holds him tight as his husband sinks in deeper. 

“Reaper.” he whines, trembling when he is full and there is nothing more to push inside. “R-Reaper, Reaper…”

Hushing him softly, Reaper stills and kisses away every tear that falls from his undamaged eye. He’s tense with need, but doesn’t dare move until Geno exhales shakily and relaxes into him, nodding with a wobbling grin but with certainty in his eyes. 

Slowly, with Reaper’s hands guiding him, he lifts.

The fall back onto Reaper’s length is  _ euphoric.  _

Rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall...it starts slow, but is fast to quicken and, together, they rock their hips in yet another dance neither realized their body would so easily recall.

“I love you.” Reaper’s starts whispering between desperate kisses and pleasured groans from the feel of Geno’s wet heat gripping him tightly. “I love you, sunshine. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Reaper has always been the handiser one between the two, but Geno finds that his own fingers refuse to rest. They curl into claws and rake down his lover’s back, reach up to cup his face and stroke his cheeks, and brace the taller’s skull whenever he urges Reaper back into another kiss. His husband is deep within him, but Geno can’t get enough. He has to touch him, feel him, and he keeps doing so until he’s sure that, yes, this is not a dream. Reaper is real. Geno is real.

And, finally, they are together. __

Intertwined in the most intimate of ways, they spend the remainder of the morning reminding each other of that fact; coming together again and again and again until their voices rasp when they cry:

_ “I love you.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to the wonderful TKWolf45 who is always so excited to read these chapters for me when I need help deciding on if I like how things are going. You're a lifesaver, my dear!
> 
> So...Reaper and Geno had sex:) Anyone worried they're moving a little too fast? Or is too fast not a thing when it's been a century?


	10. Romeo and Juliet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that was meant to be cute but failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter! Sensitive themes here too, such as self harm and suicide. Please, be wary of the sensitive, possibly triggering material this story may/does touch upon!

_ Shouting greets him as he arrives, but Death has grown used to such reactions to his presence long, long ago. Only… oh, this shouting is different, it seems. Anger and a bit of heartbreak, but no fear. Ah, so this is not a response to his arrival. It is a summon; an invitation, of sorts.  _

_ “Come, Death,” the shouting says as what looks to be a couple argues before a nearly void street, “your presence is needed. There is work to be done.” _

_ ‘Not yet, there isn’t.’ he thinks, leaning upon his scythe with a blank, slightly bored expression. One of them will make it no further than this street, but which unlucky mortal that is, is not yet known. Rare, but not unusual with cases like this where emotions run high and unpredictability is ironically the only guarantee. He’ll have to wait for their scene to run its course.  _

_ Sighing, he settles in and continues watching them, sockets lidded and a yawn tickling his throat. Perhaps he could—  _

_ Wind blows and red obscures his vision. At first, he thinks it blood, but the color that brushes his cheek is neither warm nor wet and lacks the scent of metal. Fabric? _

_ When he blinks, the red is gone, but he catches a glimpse of it in the corner of his socket and turns his head to follow it’s retreat. A scarf…? _

_ ‘Huh, what are the odds?” he wonders, amused by the sight of what can only be a skeleton’s back. Shorter than his brother—much, much shorter—but sporting a scarf quite similar to the one Paps wears, though much more torn.  _

_ When another gust of wind blows and the long strip of red flutters behind them, a hand blindly reaches to grasp the flowing cloth and wind it around the skeleton’s neck a few more times to better secure the garment. The weather is pleasant, but the wind seems strong today and loosens the scarf yet again until the ends trail behind them once more. Again, the hand comes up but this time, the skeleton turns with the motion so that the wind is at his back, blowing the scarf before him and hiding his face until the wind dies down and red fabric falls limp. _

_ Oh… _

_ ‘What a lovely little skeleton…’ he thinks, leaning more heavily on his scythe and peering over the heads of the bickering couple to better see the small mortal. There’s something odd about them, but entrancing, too. Something beyond the strange glitch over their eye and the hint of color he saw before their scarf settled over their chest. _

_  They look disturbed and just a touch frightened, but there’s a look in their eye… sorrow? No, something deeper than mere sorrow. Deep and painful, yet beautiful in a wistful, heartbreaking manner; like the first fracturing of one’s heart. _

_ ‘Who are you…?’ he wonders, enthralled by the mortal looking his way. No, not  _ his  _ way, he knows. At the attention drawing, bickering couple. Still, he finds himself willing to pretend that their gazes meet. That the small, sad skeleton chooses to watch him instead of the spectacle between them. It’s a pleasing little fantasy.  _

_ It makes him smile. _

_ “Hello, little skeleton.” he greets, knowing they will not hear. _

_ He nearly loses a hand fumbling for his scythe when they— _ he— _ responds. _

Fingertips skim over the series of bones forming his left wrist, light as they trace the faint line that cuts across once perfect ivory and mars the palm of his hand. When the line ends and there is nothing else to follow, the fingers curl around the back of his hand and bring his palm up so that smiling teeth may press against the center of the fading scar.

“Over a hundred years and yet I can still see this mark...” Geno whispers, every word spoken into the scar as his kiss lingers on Reaper’s wrist. “It must have painful.”

“If I remember correctly, you were far more concerned about the state of my hand than I was at the time, darling. A simple cut was and still is far from the gravest wound I ever suffered. The pain was bearable, if not an embarrassing one to experience when such a cute skeleton saw that I was the cause of my own wound.”

“That’s not what I meant, you idiot.” still, the memory of their first meeting warms Geno’s smile, though a touch of sadness taints the warmth. “A century...” the smaller skeleton sighs, “You used to boast about this mark, remember? Said it was like a love bite you hoped would never fade; a reminder of your first meeting with your love. I… I can’t imagine that was a pleasant reminder to have when you thought me dead...”

_ Hesitantly, he slides his ring off. Moments later, he returns it to it’s rightful spot around the base of his left ring finger.  _

_ Again, he pulls it off. _

_ On. _

_ Off. _

_ On. _

_ … _

_ … _

_ … _

_ Off, for good this time. _

_ Pressing his wavering smile to the still warm metal, he gently places it in a box lined with velvet. It isn’t meant to carry his ring—it’s the same little red box he used to propose to Geno—but his fits well enough inside. It will be safe there.  _

_ Carefully, he closes the box and moves to hide it somewhere safe, yet close. As he reaches up for the perfect spot, his sleeve falls back and he catches sight of the scar from the wound that almost took his hand: the cut from his surprise at Geno’s first ‘hello.’ _

_ Instinctively, he smiles. There’s a kiss mark next to the scar from just that morning. _

_ There’ll be no teeth to replace it when it fades… _

_ Like the tears that fill his sockets, the smile falls. _

_ Quickly, he pulls down his sleeve. _

“...Sometimes, I wished it would disappear.” he admits. “It’s such a faint thing, barely noticeable, really, but it was a glaring reminder of all that I lost. Some days, I hated it. Swore I could feel it’s weight from where the scar hid under my sleeve. Most though…” when Geno presses another kiss to the scar, he smiles, “I remembered you doing that. I would recall the affection you pressed to the line through fingertips and smiles and I… it would hurt, but it would make me smile, too.”

For a moment, he thinks back to his darkest days; to what more he has to say but isn’t sure if he should share.

 When Geno’s next kiss to the old, long since healed wound comes, his decision is made and his voice lowers as he shares a secret he never once dared to breathe.

“Even on my lowest days when your memory was too much to bear and I wanted to claw your kisses from the scar, it was the painful yet beautiful thought of your love that stilled my hand from actions I would have regretted.”

“Reaper…”

“Our hardships this past century differed in many ways,” he murmurs, “but pain was one experience we shared. I...I didn’t know how to deal with mine though. Such an overwhelming misery... There were many things I considered, Geno, all of which I am glad I never brought myself to try. I… it hurt, but the so-called solutions I thought of hurt more, for I knew that any scars I replaced the one I’ve worn since our first meeting with would be untouched by you. They would have hidden the reminder of my lost love, but they would have stolen the memories of the pleasant life we shared. No matter how much those memories hurt, losing them forever… Stars, I couldn’t ever stand the thought.”

“I’m sorry.” Geno murmurs, unable to keep the apology from lunging out of his mouth. A lot of what Reaper describes is familiar to him. Through his duties, his stories, personal experience… He is no stranger to the concept of carving pain into yourself simply to drown the sorrow in your chest with something rougher; something bloodier and awful, but seemly easier to control. It’s not, he knows, recalling souls he has sat with, unseen, as they bled their lives away simply because they couldn’t stop the urge. It’s definitely not, but it’s a tempting facade to believe. To think his husband nearly fell victim... “I’m sorry,” he repeats, feeling at fault, “I’m so, so sorry Reaper.”

“It’s not your fault, Geno.”

Unfortunately, Reaper knows that Geno has already decided it is. He expects more on the subject of his once considered actions, but, instead, Geno leads with, “Are you familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet?” 

“What…?”

Geno merely repeats the question with no explanation of its relevance given. When he nods, Geno continues speaking, his eye sad, “They call it romantic, you know? Star-crossed lovers with a tragic end because neither could bare to live without the other, so they felled themselves to meet in death when they believed their lover lost. Poison, a blade… both led to suicide in the name of love. It’s a popular story…” bitterly, Geno scowled. “I hate it.”

“Geno-”

“I hate it because so many  _ understand  _ it.” Geno continues, hand curled tight around Reaper’s. “It ought to be a warning, but people read and see themselves in the lovers. They feel their pain and see their choice and they-” his breath hitched. “If you could have, would you have joined me in the eternal slumber you thought I fell to?”

What terrifies him is that Reaper finds he has no answer. He knows now that Geno is alive, but if he could have fallen victim to the very concept he was when he thought Geno dead… “I don’t know,” he chokes out, “sunshine, I...I don’t know.” but there’s a small, nasty voice in the back of his head that whispers  _ ‘yes’. _

Somehow, Geno seems to hear it, for tears begin falling from his eye. “I hate that story. Beautiful, they call it. Touching, they say. They sing it praises for the pain it causes. It’s a wonderful tragedy, but it’s a heartbreaking one because the tragedy isn’t in the suicide of the lovers. It’s in the pointlessness of the deaths. Had Romeo mourned just a little longer before swallowing poison, he would have seen that his love was alive. Instead, he stole his own life and Juliet awoke simply to do the same. I... I  _ hate  _ it.  _ I hate that story.” _

Gently, he reaches for Geno’s face, “Sunshine…” he whispers, drawing Geno in to press their foreheads together.

Desperately, Geno curls his fingers through Reaper’s bared ribs. “I never wanted to be your Juliet, Reaper. I never wanted you to mourn me so terribly it drove you to extremes.”

‘But had I been able to, I would have been his Romeo,’ Reaper thinks, suddenly more grateful for his status than he ever was before. “Geno…”

“I’m glad you haven’t gained more scars,” Geno admits, blinking sorrow filled relief from his eye, “stars, I’m so glad for the scars you lack, and the limitations you have. I...I’m so, so glad because I...I never wanted to be your Juliet,” he repeats, helpless, “but I would have been. Had you been my Romeo, I would have been your Juliet and I- I just-! _ I hate that story.” _ It’s like Geno needs to say it again simply to ensure Reaper understands the truth of his statement. “I hate it, Reaper. I...I hate that I’m one of those people who understand it; who relate in the worst of ways, because  _ I would have been your Juliet  _ if you were capable of being my Romeo. If you-!” 

“Geno.” Reaper attempts to soothe, trying to calm his husband from the fit Geno is working himself into. “Shhh, Sunshine, shhh. I...it didn’t come to that, okay? I never brought myself to carve out my pain, nor have I ever tried to join you in the rest that never was. I’m alive and well, darling.  _ You’re  _ alive and well.”

Geno sobs and shakes his head. “I...I…”

“Shhh, we’re okay, sunshine. We’re-”

And with a gasping sob the admission comes, stealing Reaper’s breath away.

“You’re the only reason I’m alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, yeah, so...this chapter was meant to be fluffy, but that didn't happen so...next time?
> 
> As always, a big thanks to the lovely TKWolf45~
> 
> Also! Notice:
> 
> Due to new responsibilities, my updates are going to be a little wonky. My actual update schedule is nonexistent, but I still like at least trying to get new chapters out for this story and 1E99 (Infinity) out within the same week whenever possible. Now, you may see only one story being updated per week, or possibly one story being updated every two weeks. 
> 
> To clarify, this week: Tragedy is updated, next week 1E99 will be updated, then Tragedy, and so on. Hopefully, I'm able to stick to this! If not, just keep an eye out for new chapters because I have no intentions of going on a hiatus for either story, even if updates do slow.
> 
> Hope you don't mind sticking it out with me, guys!


	11. Saved By My Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys settle down to talk some more! Until they're rudely interrupted, that is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It isn't flat out stated, but discussion involving suicidal thoughts.

_ Little, fragile Sans still has four phalanges to spare when using fingers to count his age when he is reminded that there’s something not quite right about himself.  _

_ The day he has this fact proved yet again, he’s bundled up in the softest blanket his mother owns and is carried—always carried, never walked—to the labs where his father works. He’s coddled, cooed at, and is handled by the gentlest of hands while being changed into a gown before being set down on a scale that barely shifts under his weight. Whatever number his father reads make both parents frown, but he’s distracted from it as they drag a ruler up to the very top of his head; measuring him, then frowning more. _

_  With no more test required for him to stand on the scale, he’s lifted and placed on a paper covered cushioned table almost more familiar to him than his own bed. It’s chilly, but he’s quickly given his blanket back and a pair of warm slippers to wear to stave off any illnesses the chill might bring. Once he’s seated and warm, foam covered metal rails are lifted to click into place all around him; ensuring he will not topple over and fall. _

_ Triple checking that he is settled in, his parents turn away just enough that they can keep him in their sights while stealing away as much privacy for themselves as they can manage with a curious, prying child attempting to listen in.  _

_ “I’m worried,” his mother whispers, the white coat matching her husband’s wrinkled beneath her tight grip as she worries the hem.  _

_ His father nods with a sigh, murmuring, “I am as well. He’s nearly seven, and yet his physical appearance is that of a child half his age. It is not unusual for our kind to be of various heights, but growth is often steady up to and throughout their adolescent years. No matter how minimal that growth is, there should still be evidence of it taking place.” _

_ “His weight hasn’t changed either, I noticed. He… Gaster, love, he isn’t growing. He isn’t getting better! They… t-they said-” _

_ Before Sans can catch sight of his mother’s tears, his father pulls her into an embrace that looks far tighter than any of the ones he’s ever been allowed. “Everything we’ve been told were simply assumptions, dear. Sans,” said child quickly looked away before he could be caught watching, “his situation is...unique. Rare.” _

_ “They… t-they said he would grow, Gaster. That if he wasn’t dead by his toddler years, then it meant his stats were likely to improve. He’s six, darling! Six, and yet he’s frailer than even the freshest infant in the village. Stars, our neighbor’s boy could dust him with a love tap and he’s barely a week old!” _

_ Sans remembered the neighbor’s new son. He looked like one of his plush toys with how soft and small and fuzzy he was. He had wanted to stroke their furry little head as his mother had done, but the little thing was prone to fits and was born with claws capable of doing triple the damage he could take.  _

_ Mother and father made sure to keep him very, very far in case those tiny paws lashed out.  _

_ “He isn’t getting better, Gaster. In all these years, his health hasn’t risen a single decimal. What… what are we supposed to do?” _

_ “All we can do for now is keep him safe and continue our tests. He has a good life with us, darling. You and I… we will do all we can to ensure he is able to keep it.” _

_ When his parents break their embrace and turn to him with smiles, both their eyes were wet and sad. He wants to jump down from the table and rush to them with hugs to comfort them as they do whenever he cries, but he isn’t allowed to run or jump or do much of anything of a similar sort.  _

_ Instead, he smiles back and offers a cheerful wave. He tries for a joke, but he’s new to the concept of puns and isn’t sure if it’s all that funny. Still, they laugh to humor him and return his comfort with gentle hugs and soft, barely there kisses. _

_ “Let’s give you your medicine, little love.” Father says, chuckling at the disgusted yet resigned expression he makes.  _

_ Sans doesn’t ask if he has to take it. He’s been doing so for so long that he’s almost positive of the foul, bitter flavor being his first true memory. “Okay…” but as resigned as he is that his medicine won’t change, there’s one question he can’t help but ask despite knowing the answer will never change. Still, he tries. He hopes today will be different. “Can… can I play outside if I take it, dad?” Pleadingly, he looks at his mother. “Please, mom?” _

_ Their smiles fall. “No, Sans,” his mother whispers apologetically, “it’s too dangerous. You can play in your playroom later.” _

_ But no one will play with him there. The other children think it’s weird, he knows. The cushion floors, the rules, the careful observation of his parents who stand watch to prevent rougher games… _

_ Dropping his eyes to the floor, he nods in understanding as he tries to keep his smile in place. He’s given his medicine, sits through examinations, and is changed back into his usual clothing so he can be bundled in his blanket and carried home.  _

_ While his mother walks with him in her arms, he listens to the quiet gossip around him, though he doesn’t quite know what gossip even is yet.  _

_ “Oh, it’s the Gaster boy. Poor, poor thing, that little darling.” _

_ “A sickly thing, I hear. Nearly toppled over because of a sneeze, once!” _

_ “Hasn’t got many more years in him, I think.” _

_ “Shhh! Don’t you dare say such a horrible thing when the poor boy and his mother are right there! He hasn’t fallen yet, you blasted idiot!” _

_ “Oh, you know you’re thinking it too! One measly point of health? A strong gust of wind could end up keeling him over. His parents are hopeful fools if they think there’s any future for that boy other than the arms of death winding around him tight.” _

_ “You’re horrible!” _

_ “I’m realistic. That kid is nothing more than a tragedy waiting to happen.” _

_  He doesn’t know that word, but the way it’s spoken is with the same words children use to call him strange. Sans knows he is. Strange, that is, so who is to say that he isn’t one of those tragedy things too? _

_ His mother, apparently. _

_ “Don’t listen to them, my little love.” His mother says in the language of spoken symbols special to their family. “Mama and Papa are going to make sure your story isn’t a sad one. You have so much to live for, darling. We’re going to make sure you get to do so for a very, very long time.” _

_ Living for something? He… Sans doesn’t really understand what it is his mother means by that. As young as he is, the will to live is a concept hard to grasp for one not entirely aware they’re constantly a single wrong step away from his end. He doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t yet know just what death means, or how close to it he is. _

_ All Sans truly understands at that moment is this: Even if he doesn’t know why, his parents are trying very hard for his sake. So he nods like he gets what his mother means and decides that, a strange tragedy-thing or not, he’s going to try hard for them, too. _

_ Heh, maybe they’ll let him play outside if he does good! _

* * *

 

It’s a very sad thought to have, but Geno comes to realize that he’s slept more these last two or so days spent in Reaper’s arms than he has in the entirety of the previous month. Insomnia has plagued him for years, but never so terribly as it does whenever the yearly anniversary of his child’s death and husband’s not purposeful abandonment rears its head. For weeks now he’s barely slumbered, yet all that sleep that’s gone missed has been regained quickly due to the exhaustion his fits of tears leaves him in. 

But slumber after sobbing never feels restful, and as Reaper presses a warm mug into his hands, he finds his eyes still heavy as he blinks down at the drink brewed for him by his love. ‘Hot chocolate…’ he thinks with a slight smile when sweetness fills his mouth after the first sip. Sweet and soothing, but not sugary enough to keep him awake any longer than his mind will do on its own. 

“Feeling better?” Reaper questions softly, squeezing onto a plush chair meant for one alongside the smaller, younger god. 

Better, but not  _ good.  _ “I think,” he says into his mug, “but I… I don’t know.”  _ I don’t think I’m better. I’m worried that I’ll never be, _ he doesn’t say. He barely wants to acknowledge the thought.

The arm that slides around his shoulders is somehow warmer than the drink held between his hands. He knows it’s in his head, but Geno likes to think that warmth spreads to his chest too. His heart feels warm. Happy, or as close as he can get at the moment. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” No matter how much interest he had over the thoughts that ran through Geno’s mind, Reaper never pushed him. He’d ask, but a no would be accepted when Geno needed his wishes respected the most. If he didn’t want to talk, Reaper wouldn’t make him. Still, the taller god clarified, “About what you said earlier,” just in case the tragic one would agree to speak.

Busying himself with another mouthful of his drink, Geno thought over just what it was he had to say, and whether or not he wanted to share the words he kept close to his heart for years with the one they were centered around. 

He did. “I… it’s hard to explain.”

Reaper preferred coffee and tea over hot chocolate, but that didn’t stop him from reaching around and stealing the next sip from Geno’s mug. “Take whatever time you need, sunshine. I’ll give you my eternity if you require it.”  _ If you desire it,  _ he meant.

Shuddering under the weight of such a promise, the glitch leaned further back into his husband’s warmth and ran a finger over the rim of his mug as he thought. By the time the right words came to him, no sweet drink remained in his cup to replace the foul taste of words gone stale and left to fester. 

“There’s…” his grin quirked up, though no humor touched his smile, “...something  _ tragic  _ about love. Not just romantic love either. The love for a parent, a sibling, for a...” Geno’s voice trembled, “...child. When you love, you leave yourself open to various types of pain; for more losses than most expect from friends or family. When I was younger…”

_ “G-Gaster, no! No, Gas- NO!” _

_ “Mom! S-sto- MOM! Please, stop, there’s nothing you can do! He’s-” _

_ For the first time that he can recall, his mother handles him roughly as she tears her wrist from his grasp. Sockets wide and horrified, she spares him a single tearfilled glance and instructs him to go back and watch his brother until she returns. Before he can argue, she spins on her heel and takes off running towards the broken bridge his father toppled over on; desperately hoping to find him clinging onto a piece of railing for dear life. _

_ Before she can get far, the ground shakes and she stumbles forward, frightfully close to the edge he just lost his father to. _

_ “M-mom! Mom, please, c-come back! I…” I can’t lose you too! _

_ Another grand tremble and she stumbles again. Still, she moves forward. _

_ “MOM!” _

_ He loses two parents to molten fire that day.  _

“When I was younger,” he repeats, tired of but helpless against his tears, “I lost my parents. Eventually, I lost my brother too. What little friends I managed to make, my village… I lost everything, Reaper.”

The taller god knows this all, but he doesn’t dare interrupt.

“When I lost our baby…” Geno has to put his empty mug down lest it topple to the floor and shatter, “...stars, it hurt. I- everything I felt was a thousand times worse than the physical pain. I loved them, Reaper. The moment I learned of them, I loved them with everything I had and they- I-” a deep, shuddering breath, “I’ve felt love and loss time and time again. It always hurts. It always, always hurts...b-but…”

“I hurt you worse.”

The nod Geno makes is quickly replaced with a shake of his head, then a shrug. “Yes, but no. You… it was different. My parents, my brother… o-our baby... they didn’t choose to leave. Y-you did. I...I thought you did, at least. Out of everyone that hurt me by letting me love them just to watch them leave,  _ you  _ were the only one I thought did so purposefully. And I…”

_ Long before their vows, Geno wanted nothing more than to cross the unseen line of the realms on Reaper’s arm so that he could take his place within the elder god’s home as Death’s chosen; his love. He wanted to share his bed, their meals, see his clothing hung next to dark robes… _

_ He wanted to be somewhere where he could greet Reaper’s returns with a smile, a kiss, and a cheerful ‘Welcome home.’ _

_ When he takes his first step into the realm, it is at the side of a goddess who scowls whenever she says his name and who ushers him through a crowd of cold eyed, whispering deities who sneer as he passes. _

_ “Who’s this?” A familiar voice questions, and Geno stills; his heart pounding painfully in his chest. _

_ Reaper, he wants to cry out but the first syllable is lost over the suddenly pale goddess’ stuttering. “A n-new god, Lord D-Death! I am to e-escort them to t-the king.” _

_ Dark eyes with darker circles beneath them glances over Geno and the hood he wears. Unbeknownst to the shorter god, the shadow of the hood hides far more than he realizes and the defining features of his face go unseen. _

_ Ignorance does not prevent the remains of his heart from crumbling when Re- when Lord Death nods and turns away; seemly bored now that his question was answered. _

He’s so used to the warmth of tears on his face that he barely realizes he’s crying harder now. “I hoped it wasn’t true. I...I wanted i-it to be mistake. A...a s-stupid trick o-or lie. It was, stars, it...i-it  _ was a m-mistake!  _ But I- you- I didn’t know. All these y-years and I d-didn’t know. And it  _ hurt.  _ I lost our baby a-and then you t-threw me away!” There’s anger in those words. A deep, exhausting anger he only feels as a faded memory. “I...I wanted to hurt you f-for it. I wanted y-you to cry like I cried, to h-hurt like  _ I  _ was hurt every damn day I w-woke up to a flattened stomach and an e-empty bed.”

Thankfully, Reaper doesn’t speak. Doesn’t interrupt. Geno needs to speak and his husband now returned is letting him.

“I hated b-being alive, Reaper. I hated my title, my abilities,  _ m-myself,  _ and I… Most of all, I h-hated you. But I didn’t.” Geno whispered, absentmindedly clutching his robes over his chest. “I did, but I  _ didn’t  _ a-and I… fuck, I h-hated that too. Loving you, hating you, k-knowing that love would always disprove t-that hate when a-all I wanted was to be angry so that I wouldn’t hurt… It was like a cycle that n-never ended. I wanted it to.”

Slowly, he released his robes and brought a hand up to his throat. “I was choking on t-the agony I felt. Love, hate, sorrow… I w-wanted it to stop. I...I wanted to lie down next to our baby and never wake up again. But I… I don’t know if I can die like this. A-as a god, I mean. I could have tried, I… I  _ wanted  _ to, but… but I loved you, Reaper.”

“I...I don’t understand, Geno.” Reaper admits, unsure of how Geno’s conflicted love kept him from the drastic actions that might have-

He breathed in sharply.  _ That might have sent him into Reaper’s arms in a terrible, terrible way. _

Catching sight of the horror on his husband’s face, Geno smiled sadly and shifted around to press their foreheads together. “L-like I said, I… stars, I wanted you to hurt, Reaps, but… but not like that. N-not by using my l-life as a weapon. Part of that was b-because I  _ know  _ the p-pain would have been too great. T-too unfair. Even if I d-din’t think you loved me, I knew reaping someone you o-once did would scar. And I… I couldn’t d-do that to you. I wanted to protect you from t-that kind of pain, even if I w-wanted you to suffer the agony I was suffering…”

“Part of you…?” Reaper murmured, knowing there was another reason.

Shame filled Geno’s only visible eye, the glitch having long since returned to his wounded socket. “...I w-wanted to be there t-to  _ see  _ you hurt. If I- dusting wouldn’t give me that p-pleasure.”

The vicious thought doesn’t hurt as much as Reaper expected. He’s understands Geno’s feelings. In a lot of ways, he feels deserving of those past desires.

“Hurt, protect… I always wanted one, then the other. At the… t-the end of the day, love a-always won.” Geno whispered. “I missed our baby, I m-missed you… but at least you w-were here. At l-least I could keep you s-safe from myself like I couldn’t our baby.”

“Sunshine, it’s not your fault…”

“Maybe it isn’t, b-but it feels that way. Our baby-” Geno stilled, his eye peering into Reaper’s dark sockets unseeingly.

Then, the tears fell faster.

“N-no,” Geno sobbed, “no, no, no! Not...n-not another one! Stars above,  _ please,  _ n-not another one!”

Any doubt of what Geno meant was shattered by the chill that went down Reaper’s spine. Since his return with his love, his work went neglected, but the calling of souls never quieted. To be faced with a call that sound unnerving like a child’s cry seconds after his husband’s plea…? His eyes slid shut in regret.

Tragedy was being called.

And Death was meant to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the lovely yet dastardly TkWolf45!
> 
> Also, heeeeeyyyyyyy! Look, guys, you got a chapter! I swear I wasn't putting this off being of laziness:)


	12. Please...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get yet another short chapter! But still a chapter, so yay!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No major warnings for this chapter. Aside from the usual mentioned child death, nothing drastic takes place.

_The first time he ever holds a child, he’s terrified._

_With a nifty set of double digits beneath his name, Papyrus is healthier in his first few hours of life than Sans has ever been in all eight of his own. And yet, he’s so_ small. _Smaller than Sans is sure he ever was, no matter what his parents claim. That being said, looking at the swaddled bundle of bones, he thinks he may finally get why his parents are always so worried about him because that little, itty-bitty body looks so frail. Fragile, in a terrifying way._

_So when that breakable little bundle is gently pressed into his arms, Sans is so certain he’s going to mess this up that he doesn’t dare to so much as breathe while he cradles his little brother. If does as little as twitch a finger wrong, Paps will be gone. He’s certain that’s the case._

_But…_

_His little brother smiles up at him, and Sans can’t help but think that, as terrifying as this experience is, it’s also something… amazing. Life-changing, if only for the way he’ll come to dedicate himself to the sweet, smiling baby in his arms._

_The next time he holds a child not his brother, Geno is terrified._

_That terror never quite fades no matter how many more children he’ll come to hold._

* * *

 

Watching Geno piece himself back together was like witnessing someone attempt to repair a shattered window with little more than flimsy tape and the hope that everything would stay in place. In a sad way, the attempt was impressive. Tears that fell in a steady stream halted just in meager the time it took for Geno to force himself through a few deep, steadying breaths. When he tried for a smile, the shorter god almost managed.

Almost.

But like that poorly repaired window, the shards pieced together to reform Geno’s composure was a fragile thing with all its cracks and broken bits in clear view. One small push and the brave expression Geno was trying for would crumble.

“Sunshine…”

“I… I have to go…” Geno whispered, expression tight with restrained sorrow and the ache from whatever call Tragedy heard. “I need-”

When Geno attempted to rise, Reaper tightened his hold on the smaller skeleton. “Sunshine…” he murmured softly, anchoring the younger god to his lap. 

Breath hitching, Geno halfheartedly attempted to pull away. “Please, I… I have to go, Reaper. They need me.” And he couldn’t ignore that need. No matter how strong his hatred for his work was, Geno _had_ to answer the call. 

“Do you plan to go as you are now?” Reaper questioned in a soothing tone. “Love, I… I hear my own call, but even I lack the audacity to attend to my duties in the nude, reeking as we do.” Smelling of sex with the remains of desire coloring their bone. “Wash up, sunshine. Give yourself a moment to prepare.”

“I… I have to go…”

Eyes mournful for the burden his love carried, Reaper tried to be gentle as he shared his experience with Geno. “Gen, darling… no matter how quickly or late you arrive, that little one’s fate won’t change. They’ll wait for you as long as you need them too.”

“I can’t leave them alone.” Geno denied, sorrow strong in his voice and eyes. “They… they’re waiting. They could be all alone in an alley, or… o-or even the fucking _trash,_ Reaper. I can’t leave them like that! It isn’t fair. It isn’t-”

“Geno,” the elder god hushed, “darling… have you never once waited? Have you ever, if even for a moment, given yourself time to prepare? To steel yourself?”

“I can’t make them wait! I… I can’t!”

“Have you ever tried?”

Falling into silence, Geno averted his gaze and shook his head. When the silence stretched, he choked out, “They need me…”

‘...This is my fault.’ Reaper thought, pained. 

Geno was prone to wandering during their time together, but his calling had never been clear. If anything, Reaper once thought that perhaps Geno could be a godling of death. Not Death himself like Reaper and his brother, but someone close to it. Smaller, like the few ghoulish deities out there who fed off of the misery Death often left in his wake. But Tragedy… that was something else. Something so much more than Reaper ever assumed his love might be. He had little knowledge about Geno’s full responsibilities, but…

Reaper too once made himself a slave to his work, running himself ragged as he tried to answer every soul that called for his arrival, yet no matter how hard he strove to leave no soul unanswered, he always failed. Not every call could be answered at once. Not every soul could be given the quick attention it deserved, no matter how much he wished otherwise.

Learning that was difficult. Accepting it was even harder.

Obviously, Geno had yet to do either, though Reaper couldn’t blame him. Only himself.

When Geno finally learned his true name, when his callings grew… Reaper ought to have been at his husband’s side to ease him into the life of a true god. In some ways, their duties were similar, it seemed. Reaper could have aided his darling one greatly because of this. 

Regretfully, he settled for offering what help he could now. “Come now, sunshine.” he murmured, lifting Geno as he eased himself up into the air. At the halfhearted protest he received, he pressed his teeth to the smaller skeleton’s head. “Hush now, love. The youngling waits, yet they do so in peace.”

“T-they’re...?”

Slowly, he nodded. Not every life ended by his blade, but every soul that called to him was gathered by it. He knew the difference between the calls. “They await, but they will not suffer as they do. You have time, darling. Let yourself make use for it.”

“They… they don’t deserve-”

“Geno,” he interrupted yet again, soft voice grown firm, “the little one is gone. They deserved far more than whatever brought them into my embrace, but they are _gone._ You will go to them, you will perform your duties… but there is no need to do so _now.”_ Feeling worn, he whispered his plea, “Please, sunshine, take a moment to rest. Wash, then go. If you allow me, I’ll accompany you so that we may perform our duties together, though…” he hesitated. 

“...You have to leave…?” Geno questioned meekly, directing him through his small home with simple gestures. 

“My work doesn’t end with the small one who calls our names, sunshine. I… if I don’t return to my duties, it won’t go unnoticed. I have to leave, Geno.”

And like a poorly repaired window, the delicately taped pieces of Geno’s composure fell apart once more. “N-no!” The younger godling cried, arms winding tight around Reaper’s neck and forcing the other to still his steps. “You- no, p-please! Y-you…” Voice breaking, Geno croaked, “You said you didn’t mean to leave me… I-if you meant that, then stay. Don’t… don’t leave me again. P-please, Reaper.” 

“I _have_ to.” Stars, every second that passed without Geno in his arms would feel like yet another century apart, but Reaper had duties he couldn’t ignore. Not so soon after being scolded by the king for slacking. “Please, don’t cry, Geno. I’ll return. I swear it.”

“Take me-”

 **“N o.”** Inwardly cursing at his love’s frightened flinch, Reaper lowered Geno to his feet to allow him to move back if he wished. He didn’t, so the taller skeleton, filled with relief, reached out and gently took ahold of his face. “Don’t ask me to take you along as I perform my duties.” he pleaded. “Geno, don’t ask me to prolong your sorrow.”

“I don’t want you to go…” Geno cried, tears falling faster than Reaper could clear them away. “I can handle it. _Please.”_

Sadly, Reaper shook his head. “Wait for me here, sunshine. Together, we’ll collect the young one. I’ll stay as long as I can, but I _will_ take my leave for work.”

“R-Reaper…”

Pulling Geno into a soft kiss, Reaper promised, “I’ll come back. The moment I can afford to do so, I’ll return to your side. I swear it, sunshine.”

“I...I…” don’t believe you. I’m afraid to try, Geno didn’t say. Instead, he shook his head and pressed himself into the taller god’s embrace. “P-please…” he begged, heart aching just as his skull did. ‘The little one is restless…’ he’d have to tend to them soon. Soon, but not now since Reaper seemed so adamant against it. “Please, Reaper…”

Sighing, the elder of the two gently pushed Geno from his arms. “Together, we’ll wash. I… I won’t promise you anything, but I’ll consider taking you along as we ready ourselves.” He didn’t want to subject Geno to anymore death than he already dealt with, with his own duties, but he worried over losing the shorter skeleton’s trust if he left him behind. If Geno wouldn’t believe his promises though… 

Sighing inwardly, Reaper followed his husband into the bathroom. He’d think of something. 

He had to, for Geno’s sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, major thanks to the lovely TKWolf45~ aka my wonderful inspiration~
> 
> Short chapter, but even little steps can be considered progress! Also, we're seeing the start of a future struggle~ poor Geno doesn't seem like he's handling the idea of being 'abandoned' again well.


	13. Home Sweet Home...?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of filler to prep for Reaper's eventual return to Geno!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aside from a brief mention of passed away little ones, no real chapter warnings to be concerned about this time around!

_It takes Geno all of five minutes to fall in love._

_Oh, he denies it when Reaper first questions his sunshine on the matter, but the elder god knows the signs of Geno’s infatuation; a sparkle in his eye, a smile that twitches at the corners with restrained emotion, the slightest hint of color from an exhilarated flush... The evidence is all there. Geno is in love._

_Had the emotion not been focused on a_ house,  _of all things, Reaper would have been a lot more bothered about this realization._ More  _bothered, not_ just  _bothered, because…. Well..._

_When Geno reaches the end of the hall and turns to come back the way he came, Reaper has to plaster himself against the wall just to make the slightest bit of room available for the smaller skeleton to pass. What little space he manages to offer isn’t quite enough though, and the two get stuck. Nothing a little bit of squirming doesn’t fix, but still a bit of an inconvenience just to be able to examine the bathroom Geno has already eyed a dozen times._

_“Sorry…” Geno murmurs when he decides to check out the bedroom yet again and the same problem arises. “I guess it’s a little small, huh?”_

_Cramped was probably the better word. One floor, a single bedroom made from what used to be two, a room for their bathing, and a decent sized sitting room that’s more kitchen than it is an actual sitting room… And that’s it. That’s the house in all it’s small, smushed together glory._

_A gust of wind blows outside and although all the dusty windows are sealed shut and the single door into the home is closed, the cool air somehow still manages to worm its way inside to chill the house. Huh, guess that’s what the ancient looking fireplace shoved into the corner is for._

_Hmm, cuddling in front of the fireplace…_

_“So, this is the one?” He questions yet again, toying with a squeaky floorboard by repeatedly bouncing on the spot._

_Geno shakes his head. “No, it’s not… it’s…” He’s trying to think of a description that will convince Reaper of his dislike for the small faulty house. Reaper knows that’s what he’s doing and that whatever Geno decides on won’t be anything the smaller god actually cares about. When Geno mumbles, “Too old,” he’s proven correct._

_“It is quite old, isn’t it?” He agrees, inspecting the wood of the walls that looks to have been cut from an entirely different type of tree than the flooring. Where is that cold air getting in from…? “We’ll definitely have to renovate. Well, we’ll have to pay someone to renovate. I don’t know the first thing about house repair.”_

_“We’re not getting this house, Reaper.” Geno says with a frown. “You… you don’t even like it!”_

_Reaper doesn’t, but for whatever reasons he has, Geno loves this little, flimsy house. The wooden walls in dire need of paint, the old, creaky floors, the withered window garden… they’re special to his sunshine in a way that makes the cramped space feel special Reaper, because he adores all that brings a smile to Geno’s face._

_And with his love standing within the walls with that stunning smile, he sees not an old, cramped house with a leaky roof, but a_ home. 

Their _perfectly imperfect—_

“—home?” Reaper calls. When no reply comes, he tries again; louder in case he wasn’t heard the first time around. “Papyrus, I’m back! Are you home?”

Once again, he’s met with silence. His brother isn’t home, it seems. 

Then again, Reaper isn’t entirely sure what else he expected. Although born through different circumstances than Reaper himself, Papyrus too was a deity of death; an end to many things in his own right, though a kinder, gentler end who preferred an outstretched hand over the wicked blade of a scythe. His duties were just as numerous as Reaper’s own, but took far longer to complete simply because his dear, sweet brother was diligent in ensuring every soul taken too soon was properly coaxed away from the living realm.

In Papyrus’ mind,  _every_ soul was taken too soon, so every soul was given special attention Reaper himself was too  ~~weak~~ impatient to bother with. Such thoroughness took time however, so it was very likely that his brother wouldn’t return within the hour, or even the next ten. Shame… 

Reaper wanted to say goodbye.

_Collecting the little one at their home and ferrying them away to Geno’s field of eternal rest takes less time than what they spent on preparing for their individual duties. The walk through the near endless rows of graves, picking out an unused plot with the perfect headstone, digging… after years of practice, it all goes by so quickly. Within an hour, the little one forever sleeps surrounded by flowers…_

_And Reaper must now take his leave._

_“I… I’ll be back, darling. I swear it, okay?”_

_Hood drawn down low and face masked by porcelain, Geno remains still and silent. If it weren’t for the unmistakable weight of an accusing gaze settling on his shoulders, Reaper would think himself ignored._

_“Sunshine, I_ will  _be back.” His voice is firm. Earnest too. Every word is spoken with intent; a vow to return._

_All Geno hears is an uncertainty. Reaper will return, but when? In a few hours? A day? Or will another century pass before the elder god embraces him once more?_

_“Geno, please…” he doesn’t want to leave like this. Reaper doesn’t want to part from his love at all, but he definitely doesn’t want to do it like this; with tense, betrayed silence and a fear he can’t ease. “Ask me for the world and I will do all that I can to gift it to you, but… Geno, don’t beg me to curse you with the sights of my work. Don’t ask me to add to all the horrors you yourself have seen.”_

_Still, Geno keeps his silence._

_When Reaper leaves, his goodbye goes unanswered._

Sighing, Reaper shook the memory away. “Ten minutes. If Paps isn’t back by then…” it wasn’t ideal, but he would leave a note. A short explanation, a promise to visit… enough to soothe any concerns his brother may have and to ensure the younger death was well aware of his love for him.

Decision made, he turned his attention to his room. A plain bed meant for one, little to no decor… for a century now, he used this room for himself, yet there’s barely any evidence of years spent within these walls. 

Everything of importance is hidden away.

Rifling through his closet, Reaper pushed aside the abundance of robes filling the small space until three boxes were revealed. Sealed shut, protected with magic to prevent dust or decay… untouched for far too long, but in perfect condition. Carefully, he lifts the first two boxes and sets them aside. The contents are no less precious than the third, but the clothing inside can be searched through at a later time. For now, he pulls the third box free from the closet and sets it on his bag. This one, he’ll take back with him.

By the time he has as many robes as he can fit shoved into a bag for himself, the other two boxes have joined the third on the bed. Just clothing or not, Reaper finds that the thought of leaving them behind discomforts him. Geno looks about the same size he used to be… Besides, the clothing belonged to him. Reaper has no right to keep the other god’s belongings hostage any longer.

Smile small, he looks over his small collection of things before searching out the last little item he plans to bring along with him. Reaper wasn’t sure if Geno kept his own, but… With a small, hopeful smile, he pockets the velvet box containing his wedding ring. Maybe, just maybe… 

His smile is quick to fall. “Fantasize later, idiot,” he sighs, berating himself from getting distracted by idle thoughts. “Do I have everything…?”

Clothing, toiletries, the boxes… Should he bring the bedding? The mattress too, maybe? Oh, but that… that was kind of presumptuous, wasn’t it? The clothing he was bringing, the ring… Geno’s reluctance to part with him wasn’t an invitation to stay forever. Still… bringing a pillow couldn’t hurt, right?

He’d take one just in case.

Again, he goes over what he has. Clothing, toiletries, the boxes, and now his favorite pillow. Good, all that’s left now is the— 

“Brother?” a voice calls from downstairs.

—note.

Huh, looks like he’ll get that goodbye after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, special thanks for TKWolf45 who spoils me by being proud even when I only manage two lines for a chapter in two days XD your support is appreciated, hon!
> 
> Also, fun fact: The reason Geno is so taken with the small, kind of crappy house in the starting flashback is because he used to curl up in there during his wandering when he had no true home to return to:) he grew attached to the place.
> 
> Reaper does not react well when he learns this. And by "does not react well" I mean he cuddles Geno and silently vows to make their little house the BEST home he can for his husband. Sigh, wasn't he such a good husband?:) Shame that was ruined a bit.
> 
> If any wonky notifications were received, it's because posting this chapter was a BITCH.


	14. Love Is Not Limited to Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Reaper and Papyrus have a small chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, this chapter is a little overdue.

_ “P-Papyrus!” _

_ As if it were his own name being called, Death turned to the one who shouted and blinked in surprise at just who he found calling out the familiar name. _

_ ‘Huh… Small world, it seems,” he thought, head tilted curiously as a small figure dressed in striking yet blood-soiled white darted down the street. ‘Now, where are you off to in such a hurry?’  _

_ Slippered feet pounding the pavement, the little skeleton continued to run, shouting, “No, no, no! P-please, please stop! Plea- no! Papyrus, stop!  _ Stop!”

_ He glanced around, but Death saw no one paying attention to the little yet grown godling. ‘Still keeping yourself hidden, are you?’  _

_ If that was the case, then who, exactly, was the unknown talking to? It couldn’t be another deity, could it? The only one Death knew with such a name was his brother, but Papyrus was meant to be on the other side of the world collecting souls at the moment and, from what he recalled, hadn’t mentioned making any new friends; least of all the little unknown Death himself recently became acquainted with. _

_ Just in case he was mistaken, he glanced around again with his non-existent ears open. Alas, there was no sign of his brother; no tall, smiling skeleton dressed in black or the sound of his distinctive, nasally voice. ‘Who is he calling to, then…?’ _

_ “Papyrus! Please! I—ah!” _

_ With a noise of impact that had Death wincing sympathetically, the little unknown tripped and went crashing to the ground. That… that had hurt. ‘Shit, wait, there’s someone-!’  _

_ Cursing, he abandoned his latest work and dropped himself down from the balcony he stood on and to the streets below. They weren’t void of life, but experience made it easy to dodge fatal encounters as he rushed to the groaning figure sprawled across the floor. Not a moment too soon, he reached the unknown and swept him up into his arms just as foot landed where the smaller god’s head was not even a full minute ago.  _

_ “Careful there, godling,” he scolded, rising into the air with the other still cradled in his grasp. He planned to move them to a nearby rooftop when a flash of red caught his eye. “Hey, isn’t that…?” _

_ A quick glance down at the smaller god confirmed his suspicions. His little burden’s neck was bare and there was a very familiar crimson scarf being carried off in the wind a little ways off to their left. ‘I guess the windy weather caught him off guard today.’ _

_ Easily enough, he brought them closer to the twisting and flapping streak of fabric and snatched it up before the wind could steal it away entirely. Arms and a single hand now full, he finally landed down somewhere safe and took a seat, though he was left unsure of where to place the unknown. The ground was a little cold beneath his robes though, and… well, he liked how the other felt in his hold. Warm and, still so surprisingly,  _ alive.  _ A little guiltily, he placed the other god his lap and fastened the red scarf back where it belonged.  _

_ “There we go,” he murmured. “You’re welcome, by the way.” _

_ Knocked out cold from his fall, the unknown simply groaned in his sleep; no doubt feeling the ache from his bleeding, cracked forehead. “...” _

_ “Yeah, I know, you’re very thankful I got your-” _

_ “...Papyrus…”  _

_ “-scarf back.” Death finished. Again with that name, huh? Who was…? “Oh,” he mumbled, watching as a hand smaller than his own reached up and curled in the fabric of the godling’s scarf. At the sensation of cloth under his hand, the pinched expression worn by the smaller deity eased. “Huh, so ‘Papyrus’ isn’t a person…” _

_ It was Geno’s scarf, apparently.  _

* * *

 

The smile his brother has ready for him freezes the moment Reaper appears before him in the kitchen with a bag slung over his shoulder and his precious boxes pile in his arms. “Br...brother…?” he whispers, stunned. Not just that though. No, there’s something else in his voice that Reaper isn’t sure what to name. Hurt? Stars, he hopes not…

“Uh, hey, Paps,” he greets, his own voice slow and cautious. Why was Paps surprised…?

Sudden long absences weren’t exactly abnormal when it came to their household. As much as they loved each other, he and Papyrus had a tendency to annoy one another as all siblings eventually did. Sometimes, they just needed space and that usually came in the form of ‘spontaneous vacations,’ as Papyrus called them, though he and his brother had different definitions of what a vacation was. Still, returning to find the other with a bag or simply to a note with an explanation wasn’t all that strange or unusual, so why did his brother seem so surprised _ now? _

Then again, it wasn’t like him to bother with packing for his own so-called vacations. His absences usually came more from an avoidance of responsibility than relaxation, so he never risked stopping by any longer than it took to notify his brother of his eventual return. Perhaps the bag and boxes made everything look a little more… final than what Papyrus was used to? The more he thought about it, the more that made sense.

Until his brother smiled, that was. “Oh, brother,” Papyrus gasped; smile wide and eyes bright with excitement. “You… is this truly what I think it is?!”

“I… I want to say yes, but I’m really not sure anymore, Paps.” The excitement was throwing him off quite a bit. “What exactly do you think is going on here?”

If possible, his brother’s excitement grew. “You two finally fixed things!”

Reaper froze. “Wh...what…?” he whispered, Papyrus’s words a damning echo in his head.  _ You two fixed things… You  _ two… 

_ You  _ **_two._ **

He… didn’t know about Geno. In all his years of mourning, Reaper was never once able to so much as whisper his husband’s name without a great pain consuming him. His brother was no fool though. Even if they never spoke of it, Reaper was well aware that Papyrus knew something was constantly on his mind; that there was torment burdening the elder death that time only ever seemed to worsen instead of heal. Still, they always ignored the elephant in the room; something that was a testament to just how horrible his sorrow was. For Papyrus of all nosey monsters to deem it more merciful to allow the issue to remain untouched… it said a lot. Perhaps more than Reaper ever assumed if Papyrus somehow  _ knew. _

Upon seeing the older god’s reactions to his words, Papyrus’ smile dimmed into something sheepish and apologetic. “Ah, I’ve...said too much…” he said with a nervous chuckle.

“...Too much?” Reaper repeated. Again, that little nervous laughter was made. With it, Papyrus averted his gaze; something that caused Reaper’s own to narrow. That was a sign of guilt, no question about it. “Papyrus.” 

 Briefly, the younger god met his gaze. “Brother…” 

“What do you mean by ‘you two finally fixed things’?”

In addition to the guilt his brother showcased, there was a look of confliction; a hint of a battle between ‘tell’ and ‘don’t tell’ that he recognized from his brother’s years as a godling. A single raised brow and a look of expectation that  _ Papyrus  _ recognized was all it took for the taller yet younger skeleton to crack. 

“I… know things, brother,” Papyrus admitted. “Although I tried my best to respect both your feelings and privacy I… may have snooped. A bit. In your room.” Sheepish, he murmured all in one breath, “Specificallyinyourcloset.” A pause and then Papyrus inhaled to fuel his next blurt of, “Andeverywhereelse.” 

Reaper was too stunned to be angry. “You… looked through my things? You… you looked through  _ all of my things?”  _ He knew the poorer habits hidden beneath Papyrus’ kindness, but that was excessive even for his brother’s terrible nosiness. “Paps, when?”

“...A few years ago.” Papyrus whispered, shamefaced. “And by a few years, I mean… um, eighty seven.”

Eight… eighty seven years ago?! “Wh... _ why?!” _

He expected more meekness. What he got was a look of utter desperation; an expression that spoke of hopelessness and uncertainty about one’s situation, but the desire to explain oneself all the same. “Because I worried!”

“Pap-”

“I know you didn’t want to speak of your troubles, brother, so I respected that. I did! But you… Death, you looked so  _ sad!  _ And… and you…” Looking miserable himself, Papyrus whispered, “Brother, you cry out in your sleep. Terrible, mournful cries… It hurt, Death. I… I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to ask about it without hurting you more, so I just… looked for something to help. I found the boxes in your closest, and… and I knew there had to be  _ someone. _ Someone you missed.” Pointedly, he motioned to Death’s left hand. “Someone you loved, even.”

Slowly, Reaper shifted his hold on his boxes to withdraw the smallest of them all from his robes; the little crimson box of velvet with his wedding ring inside. “...If you asked, I would have told you,” he choked, tears stinging his sockets. His words weren’t an admonishment. They were simply a truth.

Papyrus smiled sadly. “You would have, but at what cost? You haven’t heard yourself in the night, brother. The pain you feel… it didn’t seem like the type words alone could heal, even if I desperately wished it was. I wish I knew about this mystery woman beforehand, but-”

“Man,” Reaper interrupted in a rasp. “They… he’s a man, Paps, and I- I’m going to tell you all about him one day. Soon, even. I… I want to introduce you two, too. Just… not now. I-” he glanced at the clock and cringed. “He’s waiting for me, Papyrus. He… he’s been waiting for me for a really long time and I can’t talk right now. Maybe not even in a week, or two, o-or-”

“Brother,” Papyrus cut in with an understanding smile. “Go. I know you’ll come back to see me soon. Besides,” his smile grew, though there was a happy, relieved sheen of water in his gaze, “I think it’s more than clear that you’ve been waiting for this ‘him’ for quite some time, too.”

Swallowing, Reaper set down the boxes in his arms and the bag over his shoulder. “Paps…” he choked out.

“Come now, brother, what are you- Oh.” Smiling, the younger brother returned the tight hug Reaper had him caught up in. 

Reaper held him tighter. “I love you, Paps. You… you’re the best, you know? Out of us all, you’re the greatest god there’ll ever be.”

“Oh, I know!” Papyrus said cheekily. At the dampness of his robe, he softened. “But I had help in achieving my greatness, of course. I had… a lot of help, really, but now it’s my turn to aid you in being the greatest you, you can be, so…” With a gentle push, Reaper was forced away. “Go on now, brother. I think I’d quite like to see you with that ring the next time you return.”

Laughing wetly, Reaper nodded with a wide smile that trembled around the edges. “Yeah… yeah, sounds good, Paps. I… I’ll see you,” he promised, retrieving his things.

“Goodbye for now, brother.”

“Bye, Paps. Oh and,” Reaper grinned, “your brother-in-law’s name is Genocide… but I call him Geno. Well, no.” his smile grew wider, “I call him my Sunshine.”

With that, he was gone.

Papyrus smiled to himself. “Sunshine, huh…?”

What a lovely nickname.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, special thanks to the wonderful TKWolf45~
> 
> **Notice:** Although I really love this story, I'm afraid that I'm putting this story on hiatus for now, folks. I have yet to really consider where I want to take Tragedy and I think some time away from trying to force out chapters will help by letting me plan where I'd like this story to go. I know hiatuses are kind of a terrifying thing for fans and that promises to continue sometimes get brushed off, but I **do** love my little Tragedy Geno and definitely want to continue writing his story. I just need to... actually plan out the rest of the story! If anything changes, I'll be sure to let everyone know... probably on here though, because I'm terrible with tumblr and social media in general :D
> 
> I hope everyone understands! And don't worry, 1E99 (Infinity) readers! That story is **not** on a hiatus, and neither is Simple. It is **only** Of Tragedy and Death that is being paused for now.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> -Golden


	15. A Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A note. Please read!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the disappointment, but this isn't a chapter. Instead, it's a notice:

I began a rewrite/revamping of this story! I won't promise fast updates, but the first chapter is up now for those who may wish to take a look:

[click here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111317/chapters/55297321)

Thank you, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT FACTS:
> 
> -Reaper (Death) is a born god. 
> 
> -Geno (Tragedy) was born mortal and BECAME a god.
> 
> -The multiverse is not a thing in this story. Reapertale will be the closest Undertale AU to this story's world. In this story there is only ONE world full of monsters and humans alike. Any Sans/Undertale/Undertale AU characters that may appear or be mentioned are their own person, not an AU. Example: Geno and Reaper are not Sanses in this story. They are just Geno and Reaper.
> 
> -The Lower Realm is another name for the Mortal Realm where mortals live. The Higher Realm is another name for the Godly Realm where gods live.
> 
> -I love tiny Geno so he's still a shorty at 4'9 while Reaper is 5'5
> 
> -Expect slow, infrequent updates (but please don't be turned off from this story because of that).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Silently, Yours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049979) by [Krystal_Twi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystal_Twi/pseuds/Krystal_Twi)




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